


From Old World to New

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gilded Age, Ireland, M/M, Master/Servant, Romance, Slow Burn, twentieth-century, upstairs/downstairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 12:23:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8207920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: Gilded Age AU. 1905. With no job prospects left in his native Ireland, Galway man Merlin Emrys emigrates to the United States. Once there, a whirlwind of circumstance brings him into the employ of Arthur, son of building magnate Uther Pendragon, a man who daily brushes shoulders with the New York elite of Vanderbilts and Astors. As he takes up his job, however, Merlin realises Arthur is radically different from his peers, his willingness to do good shining through. Where Merlin's admiration will lead him, he doesn't know, but feel it he does. As other familial bonds take a claim on him, Merlin fights to shape his new life.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [altocello](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altocello/gifts).



> Thanking Sidesteppings for the quick but careful emergency beta-read and reformatting. You've really pulled off a miracle here. So, grateful, believe me.
> 
> Also thanking Altocello who also came through at the last minute and created some wonderful, beautiful, astonishing Jugendstil art for this (upcoming). It's so breath-taking and period fitting it brought tears to my eyes.

[ ](http://s845.photobucket.com/user/pouletroti/media/from_old_world_to_new__title_page_by_altocello-dak048w.jpg.html)

The classroom is wide and brightened by a bank of windows looking over a strip of yard that slopes into green banks bristling with tall grasses. White-dusted blackboards cover the front and back walls while a large oak desk sits opposite a series of smaller desks scattered at regular intervals across the floor. On the desk itself rest a black-bound red-paged bible, a pile of papers bearing crimson marks, and a globe on which a thin veil of dust lies.

Clearing his throat, Merlin steps inside, startling Father O'Leary, who drops the key he was using to shut a corner cupboard. “Ah, Mr Emrys, you're early.”

Merlin turns his hat in his hands, smooths the brim he's crumpled on the way over. “I'm sorry, Father. I finished work on the farm right early.”

“And have you,” Father O' Leary says. “Well, it's just as well, the children are having their break.” He walks back to his desk and seats himself behind it. He opens a drawer and slides a large yellow envelope out of it, which he sets on top of the homework he was marking. “Please take a seat.”

Studying the room, Merlin starts backwards, then forwards. At last he grabs one of the smaller, arm-rest-free chair from behind one of the pupils' desks. He places it in from of Mr O'Leary's. Resting his hat by the Bible, he sits down, then, when the Father frowns, he picks it back up and sets it on his knee.

“As you may know, Mr Emrys,” Father O'Leary says, “I've just had the results of your training college final exam.”

Merlin hums, nods, drums his fingers on his thigh in a serrated rhythm he only quashes by burying his hand under his thigh. “Yes. Yes. I know it was due.”

Father O'Leary presses his lips together and toys with the top fold of the envelope. “Before I communicate the results to you, I want to tell you how I've always appreciated your efforts, working and studying for the King's Scholarship exam, going off to Drumcondra and making all of us proud.”

“I owe everything to my mother, Father O'Leary.” It's not something the Father doesn't know, Merlin thinks, it's just something he probably likes not to consider. “She toiled hard to keep the farm afloat and let me study.”

“Yes, indeed, yes indeed.” Father O'Leary moistens his lips. “These are the kinds of acts that, when performed in all humility, single us out in the eyes of the Lord.”

Merlin does believe that his mother deserves all possible praise, all possible recompense, but there's something about the Father's words that sits strangely on him, that doesn't fit, like a garment sitting too tightly across his chest, which he has to pinch and scratch at and undo to make comfortable. “I'm grateful to her, Father.”

“I just thought I'd mention my feelings on the subject.” Father O'Leary lets the papers slip out of the envelope. “It's but fitting considering it was I who made you monitor.”

“I thank you for the chance, Father.” Merlin is aware of how much he owes the man in front of him. If Father O'Leary hadn't closed an eye when faced with his background and offered him the opportunity to sit extra lessons he wouldn't be here now. Even so, the words come stiff and hesitant out of his mouth and he wants to blame himself for the lack of kindness. But he can't. He can't be kind when “I am honestly grateful.”

“I suppose you must be curious as to the results?”

Merlin's throat knots around the wild heartbeat drumming at the base of his neck. “I am.” He shifts. His future depends on this. He understands that with a clarity that gives keenness to his senses, puts him on edge. He moves to the rim of the chair. “I'm honest to God am.”

“I won't keep you on tenterhooks then,” Father O'Leary says, passing him the sheets contained in the envelope. “That's your result.”

Merlin turns the pages till he gets to the last one. “I made it!” He grins. He can't help it. Something shifts inside him and without the boulder that's been weighing on his chest for months he's helplessly lighter. He brushes his hand down his forehead. “I, well, I don't believe it.”

“You studied hard for those results.” Father O'Leary inclines his head. “You should believe it.”

“I do now.” Merlin knows he should trust the testimony of his own eyes. “I do now. But so much hinged on this. When I started out...” Merlin remembers the day he decided he would try. He sat on the porch overlooking the brown fields, tea long gone in a tin cup at his side, dirt under his nails, wondering whether he should take the risk, if he had any right to. “When I decided, I wasn't sure I could make it to teacher.” Merlin takes a big breath. “As a farmers' son, I knew I belonged to the earth. But maybe, maybe...”

“You can certainly make it happen, young man.” Father O'Leary joins his hands. “The church certainly promotes industriousness.”

Merlin bites his lower lip. “I'd hoped...”

“To get a place here, with us.” Father O'Leary nods to himself. “And we do have need of another teacher.”

“I'd love to work here.” Merlin takes a look at the room. It isn't the classroom he studied in as a child. They used the other one then, a room with the big cross behind the teacher's desk and a southwards exposure. Merlin remembers how towards lunchtime the air went the colour of fresh honey, especially in summer when the days lasted longer. “In fact I'd love to give back to the school in return for the help I got through the years.”

“And we'd be glad to have you.” Father O'Leary relaxes against his chair. “There are, however, a few concerns.”

Merlin weighs the word. “Concerns?”

“You are young.” Father O' Leary purses his mouth. “Unmarried. We'd rather have a family man. A steady man.”

Merlin frowns. “I'm not right sure I follow, Father.”

“A man of steady character,” Father O' Leary says, moving his hand about. “A role model to all good Irish families all around, one open to no rumours.”

Merlin falters. “What does that... In practice what does that mean?”

“As you are.” Father O'Leary plucks at his chin. “As you are, we can only give you Sunday classes.”

Merlin bunches his fingers on his thigh. “And if I was a married man?”

“You could take over from Miss Mullins,” Father O'Leary says, sucking on his gums. “She'll be retiring soon. Her sight's not what it once used to be. If you were a married man, you could get her job.”

“Miss Mullins isn't married.” Merlin wasn't her pupil, but he does know her. He always sees her at market. And she goes to the same milliner as his mother, so Merlin's heard quite a lot about her down the grapevine. “I don't see how my marital status would make a difference.”

“Miss Mullins has been with us for decades.” Father O'Leary grabs a hold of the chair's arms. “She's established her character. You haven't.”

“I know I can't win people's trust in a day.” Merlin's face creases into a hopeful smile. “But with time.”

“I can't make that offer,” Father O'Leary says, shaking his head. “The school board wouldn't approve.”

Merlin spreads his palms out on his legs, then knots them in a white-knuckled fist. “I'm afraid, Father O'Leary, that that's not very helpful.”

When Father O' Leary speaks next it's with his mouth pinched, so that his sentences come out slow and clipped. 

“You can start this Sunday. There's a group of twenty children attending classes right after mass. You can come in tomorrow and speak with Mr Barnes. He'll show you the ropes. You’ll have to wear your Sunday best so you can make a good impression on the parents. Farmers can be very particular. They'll have a better opinion of you if you conform. If they don't realise you're one of them.”

Merlin's chest deflates with the emptiness that settles in it. His ears ring a little and his heart aches, but does so dully, in the rhythm of disappointment. “No, Father O'Leary, I can't well do it. I can't. Working one day a week. I couldn't possibly support my mother.”

“You could accept the other position.” Father O'Leary points that out with a raise of the eyebrows. “I understand that you have no suitable girl at the moment, no sweet heart, but I'm sure you can find a God-abiding lass to tie the knot with. At your age it should be easy.”

“But see.” However much he'd thought about his future, the potential in it, and how much it all depended on the right offer, Merlin could never have predicted he would find himself in a position to say what he's about to. “I can't marry for a job.” That would be a lie Merlin doesn't want to lend himself to. “It's just nor fair. Not right.”

“Then you will have to take the Sunday job.” Father O'Leary opens both his hands wide. “We can offer nothing else.”

Merlin stands up. The chair screeches and he wishes it wouldn't have, that he could have made of this a more poised moment, but now he's in for it and a little awkwardness won't stop it from saying his mind. 

“I can't accept that offer.” He shifts from foot to foot, his soles squeaking. “I'm grateful for the help you gave me to qualify as a teacher.” If the staff at School hadn't noticed his potential Merlin would never have been made a monitor or sat the exam that allowed him to qualify as a teacher. “But I can't keep a farm on a day's wages. I can't rightly do it and neither can I marry because you bid me too.” Merlin pretends not to notice Father O' Leary's reddening face. “So I'll have to turn down your offer.”

Father O'Leary tilts his head back and frowns deeply, his mouth falling open. “You do understand that I won't make that offer again, do you?”

Merlin grinds his jaw one way, then the other. “Yes, I do.”

“In which case,” Father O'Leary says, standing up, “there is no more I can do to help.”

Merlin puts his hat on his head. “I will have to find another way.”

When Merlin returns home, his mother is feeding coal into the range stove hatch, poking at it with the poker. She slams its door shut. “Oh, Merlin, would you take the iron off the hearth?”

Merlin hangs hat and jacket, crosses over to the fireplace, and removes the iron from the fire. He leaves it standing base up on the ironing board.

“So,” his mother says, “how did it go?”

Merlin lowers his head. “I passed. I'm a qualified teacher now.”

His mother moves pots and pans on the range, turns round and walks over to him, taking his hands and standing on her toes to kiss him. “That's marvellous, Merlin. I knew you would make it.”

“Mmm.” Merlin looks past his mum's head and at the wall. “Thank you, ma.”

Stepping back, his ma looks him in the eyes. “There's something wrong. You were so hopeful, Merlin, and you don't sound it anymore.”

Scrubbing his knuckles across his mouth, Merlin moves away from his mother. He starts pacing. “I'm happy if you're proud.”

His mother cants her head to the side. “There's something you're not saying.”

Merlin walks past his mum and moves the pots off the fire. “Father O'Leary didn't give me the job.”

“I thought it was yours if you qualified.”

“Ah, no.” Merlin scratches at his nape, sighs. “Father O'Leary will only give it to a family man.”

“Oh.” His mother's footsteps sound light. Her side brushes his when she gets to the range. She puts the sauce back on the fire. “He won't make an exception?”

“He can give me a Sunday job,” Merlin says, shoulders collapsing. “Or I can get a full time teacher job. But to do that I have to marry.”

“I thought that Freya ...” His mother gives the sauce a stir. Its colour gets deeper and the potatoes in it start to soften. “Perhaps.”

“No.” Merlin says. “No.”

The soup his mother serves is thick and brown. Since it's two days old, the bread is not soft but she covers it in good creamy butter and that helps with the chewing. When he's done with it, Merlin's still hungry, but he downs some beer, has a go at the cheese and, by then, all hunger pangs are gone.

“You know I support you in all your choices,” his mother says, sprinkling bread crumbs around her plate so they soak up the remaining stew. “I'm fine with whatever you choose to do.”

“I can work on the farm for a while.” His mother does need help. Perhaps it's time for Merlin to put his dreams aside. “I will try again when I find an opening in the papers.”

“That may not happen as soon as you wish it to.” His mother puts the spoon down. “Merlin?”

“Mm?” Merlin places both hands on the rim of the table, watches them. The calluses he had developed working in the farm as a young lad have in part smoothed. The years in Dublin have seen to that. “Yes?”

“I think you want more than that.” His mother tries to seek out his gaze. “Working on the farm.”

“I've always liked it here.” It was his father's dream at one point. If he can keep it alive, Merlin will. “It's true I want to be a teacher, but I want to keep this place just as much.”

“There may be a solution to that.” His mother reprises eating. She takes small bites and chews carefully, knowing how to make her food last. She's always been better at that than Merlin. “Uncle Gaius wrote.”

“Gaius, as in da's dad's brother?” Merlin raises an eyebrow. “The one who went off to America?”

“Him.” His mother smiles. Unlike Merlin she's actually met the mythic man. “He's doing quite well.”

“I know.” Merlin's ma has, after all, often read his letters out loud. “He's made it as a doctor.”

“Yes.” His mother takes a sip of their beer. It's the last of the batch Merlin brewed himself. “He's now treating important people. People with grand houses. People who give annual balls and brush elbows with the president, grandees themselves.”

“I thought we didn't like those people,” Merlin says, flicking his fingers at the oil lamp. It's giving off less and less light. He doesn't think they have enough oil stashed away to last the weekend. They must use it sparingly. “But I'm happy for Uncle Gaius, of course.”

His mother sighs. “I never meant to be harsh about those people.”

Merlin picks up the oil lamp and walks with it to the sideboard. “No, no, I know.” Merlin thinks his mother's always been rather too forgiving about them. She's always fought for the rights of farmers, of folk like them, but she's never held a grudge against those who've had better luck in the world. In a way Merlin admires that. “But at least they've helped uncle Gaius.”

“That's my point,” his mother says. “Uncle Gaius said there's no reason why you can't succeed there too. He can help you.”

“I'm not a doctor.” Merlin unscrews the chimney from the base of the lamp and pours more oil into it. The flame licks at his hand and gusts strong. “I can't work for him.”

“No.” The chair scrapes and his mother moves about. “But you could find something. He says you're sure to.”

Merlin fits the lid back in place and screws the pin tight. “Ma, I would.” He turns around and faces her. In the brighter glare of the lamp the room looks warmer, though as bare. Perhaps, if Merlin had worked harder, they would have been able to afford more. “But you know I don't have enough to pay for passage.”

“I have saved some money.” She stands tall, folds her hands together and looks at her knuckles. They're red and raw, especially where the bone sticks out the most. Then again after a life of toil, her hands couldn't possibly look any different. “You can use that.”

“But can you live through a winter once you've paid for passage?” Merlin knows the answer and he's not letting his mother starve so that he can have a future in America. He'd rather cut his own hand. “And besides, even if we found money enough to pay for the voyage over, they would still not let me in. Remember what da used to say? They don't let beggars in.”

His mother's shoulders slump. “Merlin, I want you to have a chance.”

“I know, ma.” He walks over to her and kisses her cheek. “But I can't take this one.” And because he can't take his ma being down, he adds, “I'm sure everything will turn out fine.”

 

*****

 

Merlin closes the door and pockets the key. Popping the collar of his home-spun jacket, he crosses the burnished stubble of the fields and comes upon the road. His jacket has a couple of holes, a large one at the elbow, which he has patched up again and again in sturdy brown thread, and a smaller one at the back seam. All summer long he hasn't noticed, but now, with the chill seeping in through the apertures, he does. He walks hunched in, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, feeling the coarse lining of them, until Cassidy from two farms over stops his cart, his horse snorting and swishing its tail, and tells Merlin, “Ya going into the village, young Emrys?”

“I am, Mr Cassidy.” If Merlin had had a hat to doff, he'd have done it. “Was considering spending my last few shillings on a hearty beer down at the Sun.”

“Is that so.” Mr Cassidy pats the seat next to him. “I'll take ya. Mind ya, not as far as the Sun. But I'll drive you as far as Salthill.”

“That's good enough for me, Mr Cassidy,” Merlin says, as he mounts the cart. “It'll put me right on track that will.”

As the wheels spin, the cart creaks and screeches. When they come upon a pothole the entire chassis trembles, but Merlin doesn't fear that the axle will break or that the sprinter bar will fracture. Even so they don't make good pace. It's still a far sight better than walking the whole thirteen miles. That's quite a trek. Generally Merlin always braves it but he'd rather be spared this time. 

On the way to Salthill, they pass the bay of Kinvarra, the blue of its waters dense and skimmed with white. They spot the stone bulk of the castle, turrets and barbacane, its foundations vanishing into pale banks of mist. When they trundle over the bridge at Clarinbridge, Mr Cassidy says, “So how's your ma?”

Merlin looks out to the village, to the houses with their sloping roofs and small windows. “She's coping.” Merlin's ma is one to keep up a strong front in the face of hardship, but even so Merlin can see how much he's made her suffer. “She tending our farm as best she can. But I've been away for too long and, well, it's been hard on her.”

“This late crop’s coming bad. It's been hard on us too,” Mr Cassidy says, pulling on the reins. “It's been hard on us too.”

Mr Cassidy drops Merlin in sight of Salthill Pier, theend of it smudged in the dark oranges of sunset.

By the time Merlin gets to the pub night has fallen. Inside lights burn and the air is smoky with the effluvia of pipes and cigars. A wooden deck opens at the side while at the back an open fire crackles steadily on, logs hissing as the flames consume them. Around it farmers gather, pints glasses raised in the air as they talk. 

Merlin makes to the bar, a large oak counter that splits the room in two, frosted glass contouring the mirror behind it. He orders an ale of the busy barman, a man with a thick beard and thicker moutstache. 

As he waits to be served, he listens to the singers. Their tune is lively, catchy. It has something of the jib about it, with its compound tempo. The words are in Irish. In spite of his stay in Dublin, where almost nobody uses it anymore, Merlin finds he's not rusty at it at all. The lyrics speak to his heart, pierce it and lift it and strain its cords to tautness. Merlin's singing along with the refrain when the barman slides over his pint.

Crossing the floor, Merlin finds his friends' table. Will sits with his back to the public room, an empty tankard before him. Across from him sprawls Daegal. His cheeks are pink and his ears bright red. He too has finished is drink. Only dregs stain his steiner.

“Hey, Merlin,” Will says, kicking a chair out for him, “how did it go at the school?”

Merlin distributes his pints and then sinks into his seat. “Not so well.”

“What, they didn't take you on?” Daegal asks, waking out of his tipsy stupour. “That's classist shit, _mo chara_. You'd have made a good teacher, cut out to be you are.”

“It's not exactly like that.” Though deep down Merlin suspects it is. “But they had conditions I couldn't meet so I won't be getting the job.”

“So what are you going to do?” Will scowls as if this is an injustice that's been done to him. “Are you going to read the headmaster the riot act?”

“No.” Merlin thanks god every day Will wasn't born in the other century, when the United Irishmen were about, or he'd have hung. “Ma wants me to try America.” He says it like that, like it's one undiluted mass of land. It's so foreign to him it might as well be. “But I can't afford passage and I don't want to take her savings. So I suppose I'll try working on the farm. I can make it yield for two.”

“But that's just not right,” Daegal says. “You studied so hard to qualify as a teacher.”

Merlin doesn't regret the years of study so much as the hope he'd put into his mission. Up until this morning he'd believed that he could make a reality of his dreams. “It's what it is. I'll make ends meet.”

“We can help.” Will catches Daegal's eye. “God knows we're not rich, but we can both pitch in for a share. I'm sure if we do we can cover passage for you.”

Merlin stamps down on the hope he feels and says, “No.” He knows what kind of life Daegal and Will live, how little they manage to scrape by for themselves. “I won't let you two sacrifice yourselves.”

Taking a gulp, Daegal says, “We'd be happy to help.”

“True!” Will toasts him and downs some of his beer. “What are friends for otherwise, eh?”

Merlin's heart cracks in two and his eyes go wet in the corners. He smiles, sure he'll soon be tasting tears on his quivering lip. “I still won't take your money. But I appreciate it. It's...” He tamps down on the softening of his farmer core and adds, “Not a shabby gesture at all.”

“Oh, come on, Merlin,” says Will, once again looking to Daegal for approval. “We insist.”

With a view to make them forget about their mindless idea, Merlin plies them with more alcohol, diverts their conversation to their sweethearts, and even buys them sausages that come straight off the fireplace grill. They're fat and crispy, releasing a spicy aroma, staining the plates they come off with their salty grease. Will and Daegal fall to them like wolves and Merlin watches them with a smile on his face. These – these are friends.

It veers close to closing time. Will sings a song off key, getting all the words wrong, twisting vowels and consonants in altos that jangle outwards. In spite of the noise, Daegal falls asleep with his head on his arm. He snores softly, his mouth parted a little, his breath coming out in puffs. By the time Will and Merlin walk Daegal home, Merlin's confident his friends have forgotten all about their offer.

The next morning Merlin wakes with the dawn. He has a headache that makes his head heavy and pounds at his temple. On top of that his body is slow to respond and clumsy, steeped in some kind of lethargy caused by the intake of alcohol from the night before.

To shake it off, Merlin washes in the open, at the pump, trousers on and shirt off. He breakfasts on stale hash browns burnt at the edges and tea as watery as a pond. 

When the sun rises a little higher in the sky, Merlin takes a tour of the farm. He checks that the fences are solid, that there are no gaps in them. Not that anyone is likely to steal inside and plunder the farm of riches that are not there, but it's wise to keep the foxes at bay, at least for the hens' sake.

When he's sure there's no loose slat, he moves onto other things. He dissects the plough and changes its blade. In the doing of it he cuts his hand, so he bandages it with his kerchief and continues on with his day. Studying the leaves of cabbages and turnips, he steps into the orchard, making sure the produce hasn't gone yellow or got holes in it.

Around midday he scatters grain for the hens and the strutting cock. It's old and fat, its comb drooping, but it's still as proud as a king, going about with his chest out and a fierce gait. The beast pecking at his heels, Merlin goes over to the letter box. Having had his answer from the school, he doesn't expect any mail, but he checks for his ma. She takes books out from a circulating library and has a knitting group that holds meeting in town. They often communicate via mail.

The box is made of tin and battered on one side. When he levers open its slot, it creaks. Inside it lies one crumpled piece of paper attached to a square yellow envelope.

Merlin takes them. The envelope has no stamps but is glued shut, while the paper is folded in two. Spreading the note out, Merlin reads it.

_Before you start with your palaver about how 'tis ain't right, we want to say, Daegal and meself, that we don't want the damn moneyes back. We passed the 'at around and everyone as wanted to chipped in. Daegal's sister, Mary, put in twelve whole pence, which is her savings from all the 'dashery she's been doing. She says that nice ladies will never stop wanting to have the hems of their unmentionables done in, so she'll always be in cash now that she's become a master o' darning. Old man Simmons stumped up too, as it happens. He swears up and down that he's forgiven you for nearly pulling down his shed on his head. (No I didn't have nothing to do with it either. I was only lurking thereabouts when you did the deed, ye awful yoke.) So, dear Merlin, don't start it all over again with your moanin' and groanin' about honour an' justice and the like. We won't take the nicker back. Accept this, before ye're shit up ta eyeballs in debt, and go to feckin' America."_

_Your pal,_

_Will._

Merlin rips open the envelope. Banknotes and coins spill out of it. Some scatter on the ground while some stay well under the flap. He picks it up and counts the coins that dropped out. Then he goes over the sum again. “It's more than thirty pounds,” he says, tears in his eyes. “It's more than thirty bloody pounds!”

Heart in his throat, he tears of at a run and thunders into the house. “Ma,” he yells, a big smile cracking his face. “I'm going to America!”

 

***** 

Newport, Rhode Island, USA

Along Bellevue Avenue, the traffic drags inch by inch, trams and trolleys stopping every few seconds as they bump into horse-drawn carriages or idle behind riders, slowing behind carts overfull with merchandise.

Knowing that it'll take an hour to complete a two minute ride, Arthur swings the carriage door open and hops off it, yelling at the coachman, “I'll see you at the house.”

Having left the clutter and bluster of Bellevue Avenue behind, Arthur walks along the narrow strip of road that separates the mansions lining the sidewalk from the beach and the roaring waves of the Atlantic. They beat steadily against the shore, lending a rhythm to his pace, crashing and dashing against rocks and promontories. Yes, definitely better than lounging in the carriage till one's bored himself sick.

The heat of the day gleams off the pale limestone façades of the tall houses mushrooming along the cliff, each one wider and more sprawling than the other, brick facades presenting marble porticos, gates shimmering gold in the sunlight, and Rhinelander fountains hiding behind trim yew hedges squared with mathematical precision.

Buoyed by the breeze, its salty tang, Arthur continues along the road, passing coach-houses being converted into garages and lofty buildings playing at chateaux with their turrets and flags and sprawling wings.

As he crosses the street, a Buick with a canvas roof and a golden fender makes for him, its driver honking and shouting, “I don't know how to drive this damned thing yet, clear off, clear off.”

With a hop, Arthur gets to the sidewalk, and stares after the zigzagging automobile. Its seats are leather and its paint a shiny cream yellow. He imagines himself at its wheel, down the coastal road, the wind in his hair and the engine purring under him. He makes a mental note to buy one of the things.

Marching uphill, he makes for the tall sculpted gates breaking up the limestone-and-iron fence sitting just ahead of him. They're iron painted black and gnarled with scroll-work. Rhododendron, mountain laurel and dogwood flower over it in a storm of leaves. Past the porte cochere entrance, ancient oaks and red maples line driveway, their heavy branches reaching outwards, their tops vying for the sky and shaking in the breeze.

The house itself is three story high, a limestone and cement construction. A wide cortile and colonnaded loggia front the the southeast facade. Rising through two stories, it fills in the recess between the two projecting wings. Archways dot it; rounded arches and balconies with ornate balustrades open up the vista, while quoins and heavy scrolled buttresses frame the structure. The terracotta hipped roofs mushroom with thick-set sarchophgi-shaped chimney caps.  
With the head of his cane Arthur knocks on the panelled door.

The butler acknowledges him with a bow of the head. “Welcome home, sir.”

Arthur doesn't say that he doesn't consider this place home anymore, that he hasn't in a long time, that he will never regret the freedom of New York. Instead he says, “Geoffrey, is my father home?”

“He's in the conservatory, sir.”

High Corinthian pillars hold up the ceiling, while a red-carpeted staircase flows downwards like a cascade, all bronze banisters and marble steps, capped by the second level balcony. Arthur follows Geoffrey along a pannelled passageway that cuts into a salon whose French windows are open, ushering in a sea wind. Next, they cut into a drawing room. It's wainscoted in highly-varnished mahogany and hung with green damask. Large paintings in the neoclassical style cover the walls with their rock faces, ruined temples, and amphorae bearing goddesses.

The conservatory faces the garden. White metal frames its windows, sunlight filtering in and bathing benches on top of which flower pots stand in rows. On the other side of it, partitioned by a flower bed, rise files of citrus trees, dangling yellow fruits. A coffee pot and a flowery cup sit on a table placed right under the slanted casements. A fruit-full wicker basket padded with a chequered napkin stands by their side. Muffins with fat blueberries topping them line a plate, while a tureen of steaming oatmeal smelling like cinnamon camps large across them. 

In his morning suit, Father sits at the table, silver fork and knife in hand. “Ah, Arthur. What brings you here so today of all days? You've been quite long incommunicado.”

“New York is busy,” Arthur says, waiting for his father's invitation before sitting across from him. “You know how it is.”

“That's why I stay away from it as much as feasibly possible.” Father gestures at the footman standing by his side like a silent statue. “Bring my son his breakfast.”

Arthur had coffee when he woke. Even if he hadn't, there's probably enough in the pot to satisfy all his cravings. “I can make do with what's here, sir.”

“Nonsense,” Father says, spreading butter on toasted bread. “You will sit down to a proper meal.”

Arthur isn't hungry, but he doesn't bring that up. He doesn't think his father would be moved by any of his protestations. More importantly Arthur's not here to ruffle his father's feathers, not if he's to get what he wants. “A poached egg will be fine.”

The footman retreats and Father's says, “You didn't go the the Wideners ball.”

“I didn't think you held these things in such high regard, sir.”

Father lays his bread on the spotless white platter. “Balls? I loathe the things. But we both know they're good for connections.”

This is Father's favourite subject and not one Arthur's particularly keen on. Still that mustn't show. “Father, we're thick as thieves with the whole New England elite.” He points up an eyebrow. “We have business liaisons that extend even further. I hardly think it necessary to attend every little social reunion just so we can make further connections.”

The bite Father gives his bread is small, measured. “That's where you're mistaken. By failing to attend you're allowing them to forget you. And if they do, who's to say they won't choose someone else to partner with when it comes to serious business?  
Arthur's about to answer, when the footman returns. He bears a japanned tray carrying a teapot and a coffee pot, a domed plate, and a platter of cookies. “The dish is quite hot, sir.”

“You're dismissed.” When the footman has finished serving Arthur, his father waves him away. “I'll ring for you if there's need.”  
The footman retreats quietly.

Father takes a sip of his coffee. “From now on you will not miss any social engagement.”

“I'll try and do better.” That's a compromise Arthur doesn't exactly want to make but he realises he has to give something in order to obtain something. That's a lesson his father taught him. “I promise.”

“That's not nearly enough.”

Arthur drops the silver dome that had been covering the plate. “I'm sorry?”

“I've been meaning to talk about this for quite some time, son.” Father dabs at his lips. “I think you should look into finding a wife.”  
“A wife?” Arthur makes sure not to pick up knife and fork in case he drops those too. “I thought that consideration could wait.”  
Father's works his chin this way and that. “It could wait two years ago. It can't now.”

With shaky hands Arthur moves rashers from the main dish to a smaller one. “I'm still fairly young.”

“Twenty-seven is not so young, Arthur,” Father says. “When I was your age I was already married.”

This fact has never escaped Arthur. “Finding a partner isn't an easy feat.”

“Granted.” Father parcels out his next bite of food, his fork glinting as he moves it around. “Your future wife will have to be of good family, bring a large dowry, be beautiful and highly respectable. Not every woman possesses those qualities, but I'm sure that society offers just such a specimen.”

Arthur has no doubt society is full of many fine young women. That's not his problem. “I should be moved by love first.” Arthur knows he won't be. Not like that. “Until then it'd be a mistake to marry.”

“Don't be so naive, Arthur.” His father looks at him with disappointment in his eyes. “You need a good alliance first and foremost.”

Arthur knows he shouldn't bestow such below the belt hits, but he speaks nonetheless. “You loved my mother, or so you purport.”

Father's eyes burn with low simmering anger. “I did. I was lucky in that. Not everybody is and you shouldn't expect to be.”

Frustration almost whips Arthur up into speaking in a way that he will regret. He curbs the pricking of it though and breathes out. “I'm not taking such luck for granted, sir. On the contrary. But the process of choosing a wife is certainly a long one and shouldn't I focus on other things in the meanwhile?”

Father's brow crumples. “What do you mean?”

Arthur slices the bacon, puts it in his mouth, and chews it. “I've been thinking lately.” He continues cutting into his breakfast. He's not particularly hungry and cook always fries rashers to a level of crispiness Arthur doesn't appreciate. But the cutting is soothing so he persists with it. “And I'd like to be more involved in our business.”

“In what way?"

“We have many construction ventures,” Arthur says, chancing a look at his father. “I was thinking of taking an interest in one of them.”

“You can have updates sent to you.” Uther dabs at his mouth with his napkin before taking more of his coffee. His cup makes a chink when he puts it back down. “I'm sure the overseers will be happy to.”

“No, that's not quite what I mean.” Arthur takes a big breath. “I want to be there. I want to talk with the engineers and architects myself. I want to play an active role in construction.”

“That's completely out of the question,” Father says. “You're a gentleman and gentlemen don't dabble in construction work.”

“We made our fortune from it!” Arthur doesn't understand how Father can ignore it. Arthur's great grandfather was the one who started it until a small venture became a big one. “That's why we can afford all of this!” He gestures at the conservatory though he means the house.

“In the past.” Father clicks his teeth together. “Our ancestors dirtied their hands so we wouldn't!”

“I realise that and I'm grateful to them.” Arthur gets how easy he's had it thanks to their hard work. Saying he wishes they hadn't paved the way for him wouldn't be honest at all. “But I think I have a moral obligation to be more present.”

“That's as stupid a statement as I ever heard, Arthur,” Father says, his back going ramrod straight even as he sits. “You won't act like a menial when you're not, end of story.”

Arthur doesn't see it like that. Taking direct responsibility for his family's entrepreneurial concerns seems like a good thing. “Father, I wouldn't be literally getting my hands dirty.” Arthur wouldn't know how to. “But I'd like to oversee at least one of the sites myself.”  
“You won't.” Father rings the bell for the footman. “Is that all you've come to say.”

Feeling as though he's selling his soul to the devil, his heart missing a beat, Arthur says, “What if I promised I'd look into this marriage business more closely?”

As the footman appears at the entrance to the conservatory, Father waves him away. When the echo of his footsteps dwindles to nothing, Father leans forward. “You're trying to say you that if I allowed you to play site foreman, you'd take a wife?”

Arthur has more than one reason for not wanting to marry, for not settling so damn fast, and he only mentioned a few to his father. But if he doesn't bargain now, he will have to quench his hopes of taking a larger, more active role in his family's legacy. Giving up would be easy, but then he'd continue feeling like he's wasting his life, like he's squandering it on balls and social calls, and being generally idle. He doesn't even have to sign a marriage contract now. In the meanwhile Arthur can make a difference, show his father that gentlemen don't have to live a sheltered life, and then Father will allow him to take his life in his own hands. “Yes, that's what I'm saying.”

Father's mouth tilts slightly. “Then you can start overseeing any site you want whenever you want.”

 

****

 

The dock is slippery with seaweed, oil, the air sharp with the tang of salt. The quay bustles with activity, people talking, sailors shouting at each other, their voices drowned out by the shrieks of sea gulls. They crowd one another out, shouldering forwards among the loiterers, elbowing passersby. Freight wagons trundle forwards, carriages and automobiles disgorging passengers and piles of luggage,while horses neigh in the air, their harness jangling. Issuing from public houses, drunkards totter forwards; doxies and merchants move with the assurance of those who know their purpose.

Merlin's never seen this many people together at once. Dizzy with the flow of them, with their jostling and name-calling, Merlin puts his cardboard suitcase down and looks up.

The ocean liner lies in her dock with the gangplank down, dwarfing the buildings on the concourse.

She's nine storeys high, made of steel, the hull painted to a shine of black and whites, with dustings of red. It has four decks and the officers' house tops the final one, four huge funnels towering against the blue sky. Two tall masts bracket each end of the long, dark hull, the upper superstructure looming above it. Smokestacks, angled backwards, reach for the summits of the air. From her bridge run telegraph lines to the bow, crow's-nest on the foremast, and to all parts of the ship, each wire glinting.  
Sunlight winks off hundreds of round windows dotting the ship's bright flank. The bow is sharp and the stern curves gently, a smudging of corners.

Though Merlin travels light, boarding the liner proves a hard task. He has to queue first and the steerage queue is longer than the one for second and fist class. The stewards are unhelpful. When older people or families encumbered by children mount the gangway, they only shout and wave their arms about, hurrying the pour souls on, irrespective of whether the travellers be ready to or not. When someone slips or has trouble they get no assistance.

The stairs are narrow and when Merlin gets down them, he has to flatten himself against the bulwarks to let other people pass. The corridors are just as tight, not very bright, though light fixtures shine overhead at intervals.

Merlin's cabin is tiny, panelled with pine. It has three bunk beds stacked one above the other, and no port, not even an air hole. A bolt enables it to be shut at night. There's no privy, not even a tiny one, so Merlin guesses the restrooms must be outside.  
He can make do. It's not as if he's not used to wandering outside to relieve himself. On the farm he has to walk past the orchard and the shed. At night in winter with only a nightshirt on it can be a punishing experience. Even so the memory of it, of trundling towards the privy, brings a smile to his face. Ah, home.

With a sigh Merlin places his lone suitcase on the wooden rack. Now that he sees it displayed there he can see that it's more battered than he thought it was. One of the sides has caved in. Another presents quite a lot of scratches and the lock itself has rusted over in places. He wonders if it'll last the voyage long, or if it'll come apart before they lay anchor in New York. He should probably try and procure some twine to make sure it doesn't. Maybe he'll find some nice passenger who'll give him some.

Merlin's leaning over his case, when a man steams in, shoving a leather rucksack forward. He looks older than Merlin though only by a few years, with flowing poet hair, and a smattering of a beard. “Hello,” he says, his accent singling him out as a Dubliner. “I'm Gwaine.” 

“Merlin.” Merlin offers his hand to shake.

Gwaine grips it tight and gives it two hefty pumps. “Pleasure.” He unloads his rucksack, a cracked bulging pack, as old as Merlin's suitcase, and tries to kick the door closed behind him. He doesn't manage because his body stands in between. “Those blokes at Cunard's are really stingy fellas,” he says as he turns the rucksack on its side. “Especially when it comes to space.”

When the rucksack doesn't flop forward, Gwaine turns around. Their cabin is so small they're standing chest to chest. “Mind taking the top bunk?” Gwaine asks, flipping his hair when it gets into his eyes. “I'd rather sleep close to the ground.”

Merlin prefers that too, but Gwaine seems nice and it's not as if he's got any specific reason not to take the upper berth. He's young and nimble and not scared of heights. The ceiling does seem to be a trifle too close to the mattress but he's never thought this passage would be exactly comfortable. “All right I will.”

“That's a good generous lad.” Gwaine slaps him on the back.

“It's nothing really,” Merlin says ruffling his own hair.

Gwaine smiles wide at him. “Come on, let's go to the upper deck. It's stifling in here and I need a fag.”

“I don't smoke.” Merlin blushes.

“You don't need to.” Gwaine grabs him by the wrist. “Come on, you can't tell me you want to stay cooped up in here.”

A single glance at his surrounds him satisfies Merlin as to his not wanting to. They edge out of their cabin in single file. Dodging files of passengers trundling luggage, they move down the lower passageway and past another one that bisects it. Climbing a ladder and then another, they access the low deck. Its planks, laid fore and aft over beams, are wet with spray. The railings are encrusted with salt. There are no deck chairs around here but a little further down the gangway a young man has seated himself on a case.  
Out at sea a milky fog blurs the horizon line, but the quay stands out starkly with its sheds and warehouses, parapets and low-water frontage custom houses.

Merlin smells the breeze.

“So are you travelling all the way to New York or are you stopping en route?” Gwaine lights a cigarette with a thin matchstick and blows the smoke overboard.

“Oh, going to New York.” Merlin grabs the rail tight, imagining what's that going to be like.

“Me too.” Gwaine takes a puff of his cigarette. “I'm going to work in construction.”

“Oh?” Merlin wonders whether this is an invitation to ask more. He doesn't know Gwaine but he has the feeling Gwaine wouldn't take it amiss if he enquired. “What kind of construction work?”

“I'm going to build skycrapers,” Gwaine says, making ample gestures with his hands. “I've been hired by the same company that did the Flatiron two years ago.”  
“Oh, isn't that one of the tallest buildings they have?”

“Yes.” Gwaine smirks at the horizon. “Americans like their phallic symbols big.”

Merlin can't help but laugh.

“What? That's the truth of it and you know it.”

Merlin shakes his head. “I wouldn't. This is my first time out.”

Gwaine turns his body in his direction. “Are you holidaying stateside or are you emigrating?”

Merlin lifts his shoulder. “The latter I'm afraid.”

Gwaine takes a pull and throws his cigarette overboard. “Pardon me if I point it out, but you don't sound too happy about it.”  
To the sound of a horn and the shuddering of the turbines, the vessel draws away from the quay. Merlin looks back at Liverpool, suddenly bright as the sun breaks momentarily through the clouds. The more the Carmania judders forward, the more the city grows small. 

“I'm not exactly unhappy.” Merlin is honestly grateful for the chance he's got now. And there's so much potential to his future, he can't help but hope. “I'm sure I'm going to be fine.”

“But?” Gwaine cocks his head at him. The wind ruffles his hair. “I know there's a but in there.”

Merlin says, “I'm going to miss my home and my mother.”

“Ha, you leave family behind.” Gwaine's tone gets rough.

“You don't?” Merlin bites his tongue the moment he realises what it is he's asked. “I'm sorry I shouldn't--”

“It's all right.” Gwaine pivots leftwards and leans against the rail, looking to the city. “My parents passed a few years ago. I have a sister but we're estranged.”

“I'm so sorry.” Merlin can't imagine being at odds with a family member, but then again he's only got his ma.

Gwaine clacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It was my fault. But some relationships you can't mend, can you now?”  
Though he's never strained one to that point, Merlin supposes that's true. “Maybe you'll reconcile one day.”

“Maybe.” Gwaine frowns and sighs. When his brow relaxes, he says, “What about you? Any family feuds?”

“No, none.” He can't even imagine having any. “But my family's not large. I've got my ma back in Galway and an uncle in New York.” Merlin's mouth quirks sideways. “Though he's really a great uncle, I think. On my da's side.”

“Is he the one who's going to employ you?” Gwaine gestures at the horizon line. “You know in America?”

“Hopefully, he can find something for me.” According to his last letter Gaius was trying. “It's not so easy.”

Gwaine rounds on him. “You have no job in sight? You know they won't let you in if you've got nothing.”

He shouldn't say it, not to a stranger, but he still somehow does. “I've some funds.” Merlin doesn't specify how much. “They won't class me as beggar.” Not for the very first months at least.

“Still, that wasn't a good plan, my man,” Gwaine says.

Gaius sounded so confident about his employment prospects when he wrote Merlin that Merlin refuses to think he acted unwisely in choosing to dash over to America. “I'm a teacher,” Merlin says. “And while I'm not qualified in the USA, that doesn't mean I can't do a lot of jobs.”

Gwaine pats his back. “I'm certain you can, my man. I'm certain you can.”

Light dims across the horizon, the pinks and oranges of sunset peeking through. The temperature drops while an ocean breeze picks up. It licks at Merlin's bones and Merlin shivers.

When Gwaine notices he says, “Soon there's going to be nothing more to see. Come on; let's get to the dining salons before we get only the scraps.”

Merlin follows him into the bulk of the ship.

 

****

 

Arthur drives his brand new Cameron Runabout onto Victoria Avenue towards the lights of Ochre Point. The Runabout chugs and steams but its rumble is pleasant and the steering comes easy. The breaks respond relatively fast and the look of the thing is astonishing with its bright yellow paint and brassy fixtures. When he comes to the curling wrought-iron fences and trimmed hedges that marked the perimeter of Dashers, Arthur slows down. The gatekeeper waving him through, he eases his automobile between the soaring gilded gates and up the long sweep of drive leading up to the house's hulking outlines, illuminated by garden lanterns.  
Manoeuvring past stylish black victorias and sleek broughams lining the drive, he stations before the wide porte cochere. Foot-men in garish livery mill about; drivers honk and call out to each other. Multicoloured festoons hang from lines secured around trees and shake in the evening breeze.

When he gets to the foot of the steps leading to the house, Arthur stops the engine. A man in livery dashes over.  
"Good evening, Sir. Beautiful night, isn't it?"

Servants at Morgana's are completely different from their equivalents at Arthur's father's. They are less like unresponsive, immobile statues, and more like normal human beings. “Fantastic evening, thank you, Balan.”

Arthur passes through the portico's archway and into the villa. The windows are open and the night air whooshes in. It rustles curtains and the train of evening gowns. Moonlight paints the marble of the double staircase pale, while the glow of the electric lights enhances the red of the carpets, brightening the hues of the Art Nouveau panels.

Arthur moves up the staircase. He idles behind ladies in tiaras and gentlemen wearing cravats. Morgana stands at the top of the steps, receiving her guests, fan open, smile in place. She exchanges a few words with each in turn, receives curtsies, nods. When Arthur gets to her, she says, “We must talk. When there's a lull go to the blue drawing room.”  
Even though he's sure the confrontation can't be pleasant, Arthur agrees.

He moves out of the receiving line, along the corridor, and into a gilded salon. A table spreads from one corner of it to the other, the balcony behind it. Champagne fountains out of a pile of glasses. They're tall and their stems are thin. Like hundreds of mirrors they reflect the light. 

A footman in full livery pours him a glass. He drinks it quickly, watching the arrivals flooding in through the great double doors.  
As he does, he spots Edward J. Amr, the steel magnate. He's portly, even rotund about the belly. His wife has her arm threaded under his, her silks rustling as she moves. More rows of pearls decorate her neck than Arthur can count. They tangle and cross, shining under the light of the chandelier. Next to step in is Rience, the railway baron. His bow tie is so stiff its corners brush the man's jowls and his cummerbund reins in a stomach that juts forwards. He comes stag. Unlike the Kings. All the clan is there; Old Olaf with his shaved jaw and diamond pins; his wife with roses in her hair like a flower bed, and their daughter Vivian between them, blond hair up, a choker at her neck.

While her parents chat with the Vanderbilts, Vivian moves to the refreshment table. She has a waiter pour her a punch. “Your Father told my father we should get married,” she tells him once she gets close to him.

Arthur stutters appallingly.

Vivian takes a sip of her champagne, then turns up her nose. “Too bubbly.” She hands the flute back. “Of course I told him I never would lower myself to such a union.”

Though Arthur doesn't want to get married, a spike of indignation rushes through him. “You're surely direct.”

“Why shouldn't I be?” Vivian swaps her drink for another. “I know my own worth.”

Arthur expects a dig at his family “I see?”

“I deserve nothing less than a man I love deeply.” She gives him a once over. “And I don't care about you.”

“Point taken.” Before he can ask her what's wrong with him, which would be patently absurd given his wishes regarding matrimony, Arthur says, “If you'll excuse me.”

Leaving behind the glamour and noise of the salon, Arthur finds a small staircase. It's not panelled and the treads creak when he lends them his weight. He comes upon a landing upon which two doors open. He pushes at the second, the one in the corner, the one in the shadow. The room is small, possibly the smallest space in the house. It's a white and gold bedroom, with sea-green panels and a pale blush carpet. Two windows give onto the park, overlooking swaths of greenery. Arthur goes to the first and draws back the light curtains, looking at the darkness of the copse, at the distant lights of the town. Beyond it lies the ocean, the wildness of nature. Arthur can hear its murmur, the echo of the breakers, but he can't make out its depths.

With a sigh, he turns back into the room, and goes to the bar. Several decanters stand in a row, matching white stemware by their side. Ice pincers lie on a white porcelain plate, a pile of napkins sitting close to it.

As the door opens, Arthur splashes some brandy into one of the glasses. Without looking up, he asks. “Want some?”

“I'll have some champagne,” Morgana says.

Arthur pours her as some. As she comes over, he hands her the glass, a napkin sticking to its base.

“How very butleresque of you,” she says, as she sinks into one of the armchairs. “But you forgot the ice.”

“Give that back.” Arthur extends his palm. “I'll put some in.”

“It's fine really. I like it warm, less of a punch to the stomach.” She quirks her lips sideways, then takes a sip. “So, a little bird told me you visited the Avalon construction site the other day.”

Arthur takes a pull from his glass, smirks. “Tell me, is that little bird called Leon Vanderridder by any chance?”

Morgana sucks her cheeks in. “I asked my question first.”

“Tit for tat, my dear sister.” Arthur arches an eyebrow. “Tit for tat.”

She drinks, lips shining with champagne, and looks away. “Yes, it was Leon.”

“Careful, Morgana.”

“I could say the same thing to you, Arthur.” Morgana's gaze pierces him through and through, like the puncture of a blade. “Last I heard, you were supposed to marry dear Vivian.”

Arthur smiles. “Last I heard she loathes the notion. I'm quite safe.”

“So what about your interest in building?”

“I had a look at the plans,” Arthur says, leaning forwards. “They're just starting, but the core designs are quite interesting.”

“And what they intend to make of this building?” Morgana cocks her head to the side. “A new extremely tall monstrosity?”

“Tall buildings are functional.” Arthur's been shown the blueprints. He's talked to engineers and architects. “You can have much more office space in them.”

“I somehow still prefer Palladian villas.”

“That's because you don't need office space.” That's what his family is going to sell. That and an adventure, a dream of great things to come. The American Ideal, office space for thriving enterprises. “It's also quite challenging technically.”

“I'm sure.” Morgana tips her glass and drinks. “I still find them ugly.”

Arthur scoffs. “They're a beautiful construction of the intellect.” Arthur puts his glass down. “I'm fascinated, spell bound by them.”

“To each their own.” Morgana says that in a tone that belies her words. “So I guess you're going to be at the site much more often.”

“Well, the head of construction isn't against it.” Arthur suspects he'd rather not be bothered, but Arthur's the owner's son and he can't say no. “And the engineer, Mr Aglovale-Smith, proposed a few innovations that sound intriguing.”

“So it's boys with their toys.” Morgana spears him with a look. “And yet for all your talk you're not as enthusiastic as you're making yourself sound.”

Arthur shifts and tugs at his tuxedo jacket. “I am enthusiastic.”

Morgana sniffs and looks away, a smile tugging at her lips. “Sure.”

“I am.” Arthur scratches at his thigh with his hand. “I truly am taken with it.” He pauses, takes a breath. “I do think more could be done.”  
“In what way?” Morgana's eyes narrow with interest.

“Well, I think they could use more safety measures.” Arthur's spent long hours at the site. He's watched the workers go up and come back down. “They have no harnesses or hard hats.”

“I admit I wouldn't go up with or without.” Morgana doesn't bother to hide a wince.

“I want to talk to the overseer,” Arthur says, putting into a words a thought he's been mulling over for the past few days. “I want to see if I can change his mind about security.”

“I'm positive he won't change his mind.” Morgana's face hardens. “Not if he's to gain nothing by it.”

“Don't be so harsh, Morgana.” In Arthur's experience Morgana likes making a point but sometimes she goes too far. “The foreman is a reasonable man. He can have no reason for endangering his men.”

“Safety equipment costs dear money, Arthur.” Morgana rolls her eyes. “I don't think any man hired by Uther Pendragon will ever want to spend more on health and safety that he can get away with. If they can present a low budget to the boss, they will.” Her lips thin and her cheeks hollow. “Rest assured of that.”

“Oh come on.”

“Workers mean little to foremen and even less to Uther Pendragon.”

Arthur face goes hot and indignation burns through him. “I know our father's no saint, but you're going way too far, Morgana.”

“Believe what you want, Arthur,” Morgana says, face drained of colour. “I must speak as I find.”

“Morgana!” Arthur doesn't know what he wants to say or how to say it for that matter. Defending his father from Morgana's sallies is an instinct to him. Even so, he can acknowledge that part of what she's saying is true. Admitting it to her though would be counterproductive. She'd run away with it and think she's entirely right. “Why would you even think--”

Placing her glass on the table next to her, Morgana stands, “I think we should rejoin the party.”

“Morgana!” Arthur's says, but by then she has left the room in a rustling of silks and taffeta.

**** 

The third-class dining room lies two floors below the deck, cutting the middle one in two. It rises amidships with twin saloons extending from one side of the ship to the other. Sidelights brighten it at regular intervals, while thin pillars space it out. It's all panelled in pine and finished in enamel with serviceable wooden tables and chairs. There are no tablecloths but every seat has bread baskets.

Facing one another, Gwaine and Merlin sit at the same table. A single waiter sets the tables around them, clattering plates and glasses, brushing off the crumbs left over by previous passengers. Without even showing them a menu, he brings them two plates each. Rice floats in a thin broth thick with carrots. Two slices of beef, grey all over, no pink core to them, float in brown gravy. A small pile of meagre-looking boiled potatoes edges the border of the dish. 

“It must be better than it looks,” Merlin says, picking up a spoon and digging in, “mustn't it?”

“Argh, I don't know, my man,” Gwaine says, only picking up the bread from the basket, “doesn't look too inviting, that's what I think.”

His stomach roiling with hunger, Merlin spoons some of the broth in his mouth. It's hot so he can't taste much of anything, but that's good enough by him. He just wants to put something bracing in his stomach. “It's passable.”

Gwaine laughs. “When was the last time you ate?”

As he tries to remember that, Merlin's goes a bit cross-eyed. “Yesterday morning, when I got to Liverpool.” Merlin had a hasty breakfast of tomatoes and hash browns. The sausages that would have come with, he did without. Saving money for when he was in America had seemed more important than stuffing himself. “I really don't mind the fare.”

“I would.” Gwaine makes a face at him. “I mean look around, the dining room is empty.”

Merlin puts his spoon down and scans his surroundings. Gwaine is right. Only a small number of people sits at the saloons table. “It is. Maybe everyone's tried the second class restaurant.”

“You can't.” Gwaine shakes his head from side to side. “You've a steerage ticket, you stay in steerage.”

“So this place's deserted because...”

Gwaine nods. “You guessed it, my man.”

Merlin slowly puts his spoon down.

When dinner is over, Gwaine and Merlin take a stroll along the ship. But for a toddler sitting with his back against the wall and toying with a blue and red car, there's no one in the passageways. In the lunge room men gather around a table. They have clothes patched at the elbows and knees and their faces are rough, with missing teeth and skin sagging in ripples under their eyes. They look like poor house rejects but they have bundles of coins and banknotes at their side and their stakes are made with those rather than chips.  
“Card sharps,” Gwaine says and tugs him away.

It's all right with Merlin. By now he feels cold at the core and sweaty, rather queasy too, his stomach broiling with the movement of the ship. At this point he longs for little else but to cover himself with blankets.

A little green about the gills, he makes the cabin. Gwaine doesn't turn the lights off and Merlin is rather grateful. He'd rather not grope in the dark, when his stomach is cramping so it's hard to climb to his berth.

To the lulling sound of Gwaine whistling a tune, Merlin falls asleep. He sleeps in patches, trembling through nightmares, waking now and again through the night. When he comes to, the light is off and Gwaine snores. As the ocean tosses her, the ship pitches from side to side. Then it rolls, hawls, fending the sea with shudders of her hull. The ship’s movements take on a rasping rhythm. The vessel lunges forward and then eases back on its frame. It's a halting progress, as if the craft were hurtling itself against an opposing force trying to withstand her progress. The main body of the liner creaks and groans and Merlin does too.

Merlin's stomach roils as much as the ship, it somersaults, does handstands. The taste in his mouth sours and he shakes as if he's cold to the bone. When bile climbs to his throat he rushes out of the cabin and dashes down the corridor, making the privy just in time. He retches and retches till there's nothing left. When he's done, he spits into the sink and places his head under the tap. As he tries to get rid of the awful taste coating his mouth, he lets the water run over his tongue and lips. His legs are weak and barely hold him, but he feels better then. Leaning against the bulkheads so as not to lose his balance, he returns to his cabin.  
When he does, Gwaine is up. “Hey, where did you go?”

Merlin steps in the circle of light emanating from the bulwark's fixture. “Loo. Felt wretched.”

“Must have been the food, my man,” Gwaine says. “Must have been the food.”

All night Merlin struggles with cramps, his stomach heaving. So as to make as little noise as possible, he breathes through his nostrils and clamps his jaws shut. Cold stabs at him even more fiercely, but sweat covers his body all the same. He balls up and faces the wall. It's only hours later that he falls asleep. It's light and dreamless, and he's distantly aware of a feeling of unease, of sheets sticking to his back and his skin burning.

A hand on his forehead wakes him. “Ma?” he asks.

“You're running a fever,” Gwaine says. “Told you not to eat.”

Over the next three days, Merlin's fever doesn't break. He burns. He gets the chills. Mostly he sleeps. He doesn't eat and drinks only little. Gwaine helps him to the privy and from the third day on brings him some food he's managed to nick from second class. Merlin keeps shivering, his body as hot as coals. Sometimes he talks as if his mother were there. Sometimes he addresses Will. When he catches himself doing it, he prickles with shame. He tells Gwaine how sorry he is and Gwaine just tells him to sleep it off, that they will be in America in no time, and then he'll be fine, and start his new life.

On his worst night yet, when the retching comes back and his temperature climbs so Merlin's temples are on fire, Gwaine sits by his side. He tells him stories that seem to have no end and no beginning to Merlin, either because Gwaine doesn't care to tell them in order or because Merlin himself can't pay enough attention to sort them out. They're about brawls happening in the dark streets of Dublin, about love affairs that flare bright, friendships made on the quick.

Towards dawn Gwaine says, “You know what, Merlin, if you promise to try and make it, I'll promise something in return.” He twists Merlin's thin blanket. “What do you say to that?”

Merlin moans.

“I think I can find you a job,” Gwaine says as he takes Merlin's hand. “If your uncle doesn't get you one, you can try at the site.”  
Turning his face away, Merlin coughs.

“I mean if they gave me a job, why shouldn't give you one?”

“Because.” Merlin's voice comes out weaker than he expects it to. “I'm no construction worker.”

“But you know how to build things, don't you?” Gwaine shifts and the thin mattress sighs.

“Fences.” Merlin thinks to his farm back in Galway, how it looks on summer days when the sun floods the fields with golden lights and how it greys up in winter days when sleet paints the horizon cobalt. “That's all I can pull up.”

“That's more than enough!” Gwaine says. “Look, I'm not much of a construction worker myself. I've done my share of odd jobs but I'm not a builder. They've hired me.”

Merlin has a notion they hired Gwaine because of his charm. “Mmm.”

“So that's settled then.” Gwaine slaps a hand on his own thigh. “I'll put in a good word for you and you'll come work at Avalon Towers, at least until that uncle of yours helps you find something better.”

“Gaius,” Merlin says.

Gwaine smiles far too widely. “Gaius, that's right. When he does find you a proper job, things will look up, you'll see.”

Merlin is too weak to express an opinion on the subject. When he boarded, he was full of hopes and dreams, of his mother's words concerning Gaius. Now they've all deserted him.

“And you can come share my place too,” Gwaine says. “But you must mend first.”

Though he wants to answer, Merlin's eyelids push down of their own volition and Gwaine's words become nothing else but a knot of sound.

The fifth day of passage is the coldest yet, but Merlin feels like kicking off his blanket. Gwaine wants to stop him, but Merlin's legs feel steady enough to take his weight. Though he toddles initially, he finds his step. He goes up the ladders and finds the deck. The air is crisp, so sharp it saws through clothes and blankets. There is a clutch of clouds in the sky, icebergs floating by with their icy pinnacles. Sternwise, in the distance, the shadow line of land smudges the horizon line.

 

****

The building site sprawls over eighty square feet and across the top section of Fifty-Seventh Street. Blocks of granite and cement form a mountain on one side. Craters open dead centre, steel beams cutting across them and digging deep into foundations reinforced with cement. Panel-carriers bellow in clouds of dark-blue smoke as great derricks and cranes bunch together, winching around lengths of iron, planks, blocks of cement.

Vertical beams sprouting skywards out of the construction's bare skeleton, the skyscraper is starting to look like more than a simple idea on a blueprint.The void opening up below them, workers walk along beams, the planks between girders. They crawl like spiders up and down cable ropes while tightening bolts with their spud wrenches. They shove at stalled spinning wheels with their bare hands or bang a shoulder against tonnes of framework dangling from a crane. Hammers in hand they straddle them; toss each other items while they knock nails into thick struts. At grounds level, plasterers prepare lime in kilns, mixing bags of ground limestone and chalk, and heating them.

The base of the skyscraper already has a shape: a two-story arcade supported by columns propping the office floors. Arthur can already imagine how it will look like when finished. It will soar high, the tip tapering as it vies for the sky. It will have ample windows and graceful statuary decorating the facade.

“It's turning out well, isn't it.” Leon Vanderridden looks upwards. “In a year tops it will be done.”

“I'm in no hurry,” Arthur says. That's actually what I'm here to discuss.”

 

“Ah, yes your plans.” Leon smiles. “Morgana told me.”

When they're not in public, Arthur will address the Morgana issue. For now he'd rather focus on the question that brought him here. He looks around and scans the whole of the site. Tin sheds with level roofs squat around in different spots. They have windows and doors but no insulation to speak of. They supply the site with offices, break-rooms, latrines, and canteens. Arthur stops one of the workers. It's a burly man at least six feet tree. His complexion is charred from rivet heating and there are blisters and scars along the length of his hands and arms. Some are faint, discoloured, old; others are ruddy, open raw. Taking his eyes off them, mouth tight from the sight, Arthur asks, “Could you point me to the foreman's hut?”

“I'll walk you,” the big man says, turning round and proceeding in the opposite direction to the one from which he'd come. “It's this way.”

The worker leads them across the site, past dug out trenches pegged with wooden stakes and piles of construction material. He knocks on the southernmost shack. It's rust red with an unvarnished tin roof. A window gapes onto the courtyard and on its ledge a single flower grows out of a vase. “Come in,” the foreman shouts.

The worker takes off his hat and pushes open the door with his foot. Before he speaks, he lowers his head, “Mr Donovan, sir, Mr Pendragon to see you.”

The foreman's voice floats over. “Well, don't stand there, Percival, you idiot, let Mr Pendragon in.”

“Yes, sir.” Percival scraps off the step to make way for Arthur. “Sorry, sir.”

Arthur grabs Percival by the forearm. “Thank you for showing me the way.”

“Sir.” Percival salutes with his fingers to his forehead, a shimmer of gratefulness shining in his eyes, before he ducks his head and moves away.

Putting the fat sandwich he was eating down, the foreman stands. “Excuse Percival, Mr Pendragon. He's practically a strongman, and works well, but well--” He works his mouth sideways, tutting as he goes. “He's not the brightest tool in the shed, if you catch my meaning. Quite the opposite in fact.”

Arthur looks back at the space left empty by Percival. “He didn't strike me like that.”

“That's what most workers are like.” The foreman drops the rest of his sandwich into the trash. “All brawn no brains. And that's the good ones. The bad ones are just lazy lieabouts, unwilling to lift a finger if not coaxed with a shout or two.” He gestures Arthur and Leon forward and waits for them to take a seat before he sprawls down himself. “But that's between me and them. How can I help you, sir? Today Mr Aglovale-Smith isn't on site. He'll be here tomorrow.”

“I've not come here to meet him.” Arthur gets a grimace from Leon but soldiers on. “In fact I wanted to talk to you.”

“Me, sir?” The foreman's shoulders tense and his face loses the easy smile. “What did you want to discuss?”

“I've been very pleased with my last few visits,” Arthur says, “but during their duration I couldn't help but notice some aspects of how the work's conducted that I'd like to amend.”

“Amend?” The foreman's eyes go smaller and sweat collects on his lids, making the skin appear shiny and translucent. “I hope you didn't find too much amiss with the running of the site.”

“Construction is getting along quite nicely,” Leon says, his smile engaging.

“Indeed it is.” Arthur should probably be grateful to Leon for mediating so, but at the moment he'd rather focus on the point he wants to make. “But I must admit I'd rest easier if new measures were introduced on site.”

Tendons stick out in the foreman's arms and his face freezes in an expression of annoyance. “What kind of measures, sir?”

“Security measures,” Arthur says. “I couldn't help but notice that our workers don't have much in the way of protection.”

“Protection?”

“Helmets, gloves, ropes,” Arthur says. “Harnesses, safety nets.”

“They have ropes.” The foreman waves his hand about in a dismissive gesture. “Anything else is unnecessary.”

“I disagree.” Arthur's lips set into a vise. “They could save lives.”

“Nobody's ever had an accident under my supervision.” The foreman's smiles at Leon, then shifts his gaze onto Arthur. His lips flatten when he does. “It's never happened.”

Arthur can see that convincing this man is going to be very hard, but he wants to try. “That doesn't mean it won't happen again.”

The foreman opens a drawer, roots in it, takes nothing from it, and slams it shut. “That's just talk, sir. Don't listen to scaremongers. It won't happen.”

So Arthur will have to implement the hard line. “I want these changes to take place immediately.”

The foreman belts out a laugh. It starts boisterous but diminishes in pitch the more Arthur glowers.  
When the foreman sobers, he says, “With all due respect, that's out of the question.” With an open palm, he dabs at his brow. “That would cost us too much, slow down the works.”

Arthur's anger steeples to new heights, when a loud sound deflates it. It's high strung and strident, a mechanical wail of sorts. Voices mingle with it, full of alarm. Gasps of fear mesh in with them, forming an ominous chorus that gets Arthur hurrying to the window, both the foreman and Leon hurrying after him.

Outside a crane swings freely from side to side, going hard to the right and then screeching back to the left. The crane's boom itself reaches outwards with a hard pitch, and then slams inwards. With the movement the steel cables tethering a load of tonnes of girders slap upwards. One breaks, whipping forwards. A collective gasp rises from the crowd. It almost covers the sound of the last cable snapping.

A man stands underneath the crane looking up. He's a bulky man with long muscular legs, a tapered torso, and bare bulging arms. Arthur recognises him as Percival. The moment he does, he shouts a warning. His mixes with that of the bystanders. As the girders come falling down, Arthur's blood goes cold. Flinging the door open he rushes outside. But the girders are about to strike and there's nothing he can do to get to Percival. He's still too far away, when a man careens right into Percival. He's nothing more than a blur, a shock of limbs in motion. He slams into Percival, bringing them rolling just as the girders impact the ground.

A cloud of dust rises into the sky, thick and russet. It coats Arthur's throat and nostrils. It pricks at his eyes so he can't keep them open. In a cloud of fine particles, he blunders forward. Through his half-closed eyes he can't see a thing but blurry shapes. Because of the shrieks, cries, and curses though he's braced for the worst. For the sight of dead men and blood, crushed limbs and torn flesh. His heart is already heavy for the loss, already in mourning for the waste of life. Still he girds himself for the worst. On legs that are weakened by fear, he moves on, waiving at the dust to dispel it. Before he sees anything, he hears groans.

“God, they're alive,” someone says in a thick Eastern European accent. “Quick, someone help them.”

Arthur fights forward. The nimbus of dust and grit clears a little. Two men sprawl on the ground, face down, spine curved like hackles. The girders drive gouges into the ground a few yards off them. They're not trapped; none of their body parts languish under the weight of the steel mass. Still, Arthur can't tell whether they're heavily injured or not. Coughing, he totters forwards and kneels at one of the men's side.

Not sure whether he should touch or not, he grazes a hand on the man's shoulder. When the man groans, Arthur says, “Are you alright?”

The man coughs, moves, wipes his mouth on the front of his hand. Turning a face speckled with dust towards him, he says, “I'm fine.” He pushes off the ground and hisses as he does. “Mostly fine.”

“We need a doctor!” Arthur shouts into the crowd. “Now!

Percival rolls onto his back and blinks at the heavens. “That was close. Thank you, Merlin.”

When Percival speaks Arthur's breath rattles out from relief. At least there have been no victims. “Can either of you move?”

“Yes.” Percival sits up and dusts himself. He's covered in dirt and there's a fresh scratch on his forearm. But he looks otherwise unharmed. “Merlin saved me.”

The other man, Merlin, picks himself up too. Though his shoulders are wide and his hands are big, he's tall and grey-hound lean, with bones showing at the collar. He doesn't look like someone with the heft and build to knock someone like Percival about but he's managed. Somehow, God be praised, he saved his work mate. He hasn't pulled it off scot free though. As he cradles his hand, Merlin winces, the muscles in his cheeks pulling as he grimaces.

“Let me get a doctor for you.” Arthur intends to have one check both men. He won't rest tranquil until he has. “Please.”

“Sir.” The foreman shifts at his side, making his presence felt. “The men are fine. They don't need a doctor.”

“They've just escaped a near fatal accident.” Arthur doesn't think that even needs stating. “They're seeing a doctor and that's it.”

“Sir, we're on a tight schedule.” The foreman's facial muscles tighten. “We can't go forward with it with two men missing.”

“I don't need a doctor,” Percival says. “I can get on.”

“That's out of the question,” Arthur says, and when the foreman opens his mouth to object, he adds, “If they don't see a doctor now, works will slow down even more because the project will be lacking a foreman.”

“Sir, Mr Aglovale Smith has a marching plan--” The foreman gesticulates wildly. “And your father yourself has let itself be known--”

Percival ducks his head.

Arthur says, “I won't abide any objections. You two are seeing a doctor.” Arthur's peace of mind requires it. He turns to the foreman. “And if you have anything against it, you can leave the site now.”

There's a doctor on site. He occupies a shed with a green door standing in the shadow of great rubble mounds. The path to it is clear but wheelbarrows stand under its rectangular window. As the two workers are able to walk, they make their own way to it, but Arthur insists on following. It's his duty to. These people are here building an edifice intended to make the Pendragons rich. While doing so they were injured. Arthur may not be nominally responsible for their well being, but morally he is as much to blame as the foreman is.

When Percival and Merlin push in, the doctor turns around. He faces an impromptu ramshackle bookcase and has a tome in his hand. “Can't you see I'm busy,” he says, briefly taking his eyes from his volume. “Come back later.”

Arthur clears his throat and says, “These men need your attention.”

“I'm afraid the doctor doesn't deem us worthy of his time.” Merlin's patently Irish accent's all an angry lilt as he says that.

The doctor looks up then. Upon sight of Arthur his eyes widen, his nostrils flare and his chest caves. “I didn't see you there, sir, pardon my inattention.” He closes the book with a clap. “Is there anything you want to consult me about?”

Arthur knows an about face when he sees one, but doesn't point it out. “You must have heard the hoopla outside.” He wonders why the doctor didn't intervene. “These two men were nearly crushed by steel girders. One fell badly.”

The doctor adjusts the glasses that sit on his nose. They haven't fallen down to the tip, neither do they sit askew, but he rearranges them all the same. “Let me have a look.”

When the doctor bids him to, Percival moves into the light. The doctor palpates his skull with both hands, feels his jaw, and asks him to follow his finger with his eyes.  
“He's suffered no concussion that I can see,” he tells Arthur. Addressing the patient again, he orders him to hold his arms outwards and then to squat and jump. Percival eases from one action to the next with no grimace on his face. “I say this man's fine.” The doctor squints at Percival's face. “That scratch will heal more nicely if you put cream or an unguent on it.”

Percival bows his head and Arthur says, “I'm sure you can provide him some.”

The doctor opens his mouth. When he notices Arthur's set face, he snaps it shut. “Certainly, sir.”

With a sigh, he walks over to one of the cabinets that lines the wall. He takes a key from his pocket and puts in in the lock. When the cabinet has creaked open, he selects a small container from a shelf. It's glass with a round silver cap that's got some scroll work at the edges. Up to three quarters it's full of a thick pale cream. The doctor secures the lid, brushes the top against the fabric of his vest, and toys with it. When Arthur sends him a pointed look, he walks over and hands it to Percival. “Make sure to apply it three times a day.”

When Merlin's turn comes, the doctor asks him to sit on the slim gurney bed stacked against the far wall. It's leather padded but there's no sheet on it. Instead of lying down Merlin sits with his back to the wall and his legs dangling outwards. His shoulders rounded inwards, his back bends. Dirt smears his face and pallor licks at his skin. Like that he looks forlorn, lost. Something about him tugs right at Arthur's heartstrings

“It's your hand that hurts, right?” the doctor says, shuffling in front of Merlin, who's cradling his palm against his chest. “You hit it.”

“I broke my fall with it.” Merlin's lilting accent doesn't stand out quite as much now that his voice is rough with pain. “I'll be fine in a fair while.”

The doctor scoffs. “Let me decide that.” He snatches Merlin's hand and feels the bones in it. “I'm the one with a degree here, young man.”

Merlin narrows his eyes, yelps, but bites that down.

While Merlin grimaces, the doctor puts pressure on various parts of his hand, humming to himself. Merlin's face twists and his nostrils go wide but he doesn't say a thing. There's something self-contained about him, distant, a quietude that exudes strength, and draws Arthur's eye. By the time the doctor's finished with him his eyes wet a notch wet but his expression is set, hard.

The doctor says, “It's not broken – you were lucky – but it is severely sprained.”

“That's all right then.” Merlin jumps off the bed.

“Theoretically, you shouldn't put any strain on that.” The doctors cleans his glasses on his lapel. “ And rest for a week or two.” He places the glasses back on his nose. “It's up to you what you do with it but I'll advise the foreman against retaining you.”

Indignation burns the skin off Arthur. “You can't do that,” he says. “This man would lose his job.”

The doctor shrugs one shoulder only, then paces back behind his desk. “That's up to the foreman to decide.” He starts writing a note, the pen scratching against the paper. It fills with lines written so small they're barely legible. “I'll prescribe you an ordinary painkiller you can find at the local druggist.”

Merlin says, “You don't need to concern yourself any further doctor. It's clear I've taken enough of your precious time.”

He shoulders his way out. Percival looks to the doctor, to Arthur, and then follows him outside.

Arthur leans over the doctor's desk, with his hands wrapped around its rounded edges. “That was wrong of you, sir, very wrong.”

Before the doctor can justify himself, Arthur's left the shed. He looks around for traces of Merlin and Percival, but he finds only an empty yard lumbered with construction material, sand and grit shifting with the breeze.

 

*****

 

Merlin whisks the broom this way and that, across the dusty floor with the missing board, under the the rickety chair they keep pushed up against the wall, and under the spare bed frames. He runs it along the line between the floor and the mildewed wall, where the skirt-board should be, and he pushes it in the corners where plaster comes away in cakes. Above them damp slabs have already crumbled revealing tender grey bricks powdered in with crumbling mortar. He's only moving dirt around. He realises, he needs much more than a broom to sanitise this place, but he'd rather do something than sit with his head in his hands.

Gwaine comes through the door with a brown bag in his hand. Apples stick out from over the rim. They're round and a glossy red and smell like summer. Gwaine bites into one, arches an eyebrow at him, swallows and says, “Why are you sweeping?”

“Because I heard scratching,” Merlin says. “There are rats scuttling around.”

“I doun't doubt it, my man.” Gwaine offers him an apple and, when Merlin refuses, he rests the bag on his bed, on top of a mound of clothes. “But you shouldn't use that hand of yours.”

“I can't sit idle.” Merlin lifts both shoulders. With the gesture the tendons of his hand stiffen with reflex pain. “I need to do something.”

“That's not what the doctor ordered.” Gwaine sits on his bed, legs out. When he sprawls all the way outwards, his feet brush Merlin's.

“Great doctor he was.” Merlin mumbles that, but Gwaine catches that, arching his eyebrows at him. “Great advice he gave.”

“He was a bleeding lickarse and we both know it.” Gwaine's lips thin with the observation. “But you can't find work if you get worse.”

Merlin's shoulders collapse and his head goes down. It feels heavy but with neither aches nor pains. It's the worries that weigh him down. “I went to Gaius.” The sight of him made Merlin glad. He's old and stoops a bit, with a sucking on his gum habit that drives Merlin batty. But he's a piece of home and family. “He said he's written a lot of people and to just hang in there.”

“Even if he doesn't--” Gwaine rustles into his bag. “--we'll find you something else.”

Merlin's about to reply, when noise erupts from downstairs. The housekeeper is loud, volleying out words in Italian, her kids, joining in the chorus. Something breaks with a crash of splinters and a banging of pottery. The stairs creak and the balustrade whines. With a yawing of floorboards footsteps clap against the criss-cross of beams that paves the hall. They pause, with a sucking in on all sound, then reprise with a hefty tempo.

Mr Arthur Pendragon clears the door. He has charcoal sack coat on with a pin-striped waistcoat and darker trousers sporting creased front and turn-ups. A flower decorates his lapel. It's white with a pale yellow core. In his hand weighs a walking stick with a rounded silver pommel larger and heavier than Gwaine's apple. Filigree etchwork scrolls around it in whorls and licks and other fanciful lines of tracery. When he claps eyes on Merlin and Gwaine, Mr Pendragon pauses. He studies his surroundings, his gaze swivelling round, going from corner to corner of the tiny room. He takes in the frail beds and the lack of curtains, he studies the stack of pans sitting on top of a pile of books, and glances with distaste at the unmade beds, the holes in the coarse blankets.

His pause is so long, Merlin feels himself burn with it. He wants to challenge it, to turn the man out, to tell him where he can shove his distaste. He doesn't like the place either. Merlin finds the window too small and the light that filters in too dim. The view is dismal enough, a bare courtyard where nothing grows. The space between gravel and edges is bare of grass and weeds or any other kind of natural growth. To make it grimmer, the window opposite has a facade grim with coal smoke; it blocks off all their light. But dark and cramped as it might be – the rats choose that moment to screech around – it's his place to call home. Thanks to Gwaine. Pendragon, however, speaks up before Merlin can vocalise any of that.

“I asked around at the site,” Pendragon says, looking about one last time before fixing his eyes on Merlin. “They told me where I could find you.”

“That gives you no leave to come here.” Gwaine stands with his hands on his hips. “It's your fault my friend was laid off.”

“I understand.” Mr Pendragon takes off his hat and presses it brim first against his heart. “I know.”

Merlin has no reason to like Mr Pendragon. He's one of the elite that leave people hungering in the streets. Before passing Ellis Island Merlin had thought he knew what poverty was. He'd thought he was one of the poor himself. But then he saw families with seven children apiece, and precious little luggage, their cheeks sunk in, their faces grey, their clothes too small, or fraying, or patched motley, then he realised he has it good. They'd bit their lips bloody so as not to cough, so as to hide signs of consumption and many other illnesses so as to be cleared, not to be quarantined. All the while Pendragon counted his millions, prospering off construction sites that neglect workers. But even so he can't bring himself to be as rude as Gwaine wants him to be. “You have my welcome, though I don't understand why you've come, sir.”

“I'm here to make you an offer.” Pendragon moves his stick from one hand to the other. “I hope you'll be willing to listen.”

“Merlin shouldn't pay attention to the likes of you.” Gwaine stands, works over to Mr Pendragon and widens his stance, his thumbs hooked at his waistband. “You nearly got him and Percival killed!”

“I have a solution for that,” Arthur Pendragon says. “But you'll have to give me a few minutes of your time if you want to find out what it is.”

“I don't have to listen.” Gwaine picks up a hat and stops at the door. “Merlin, you don't have to either.”

Merlin watches Gwaine leave then turns his gaze to Pendragon. “So what did you have to say?”

“I fully intend to change things at our sites.” Mr Pendragon sucks in a breath. “But that will take time. I will have to work around my father.”

Merlin doesn't see how that affects him now, but doesn't say it. They both know that it doesn't. “I'm glad the accident made you reconsider.”

“I don't have as much power as people may think.” Mr Pendragon drops his gaze and his lips push together. His brow goes heavy with several furrows. “My father's the owner. He's the one who dictates the general policies and foremans mostly want to please him and only him. But I think that I may in time come to start a revolution.”

“One that would benefit workers?” Merlin hopes so. He may have lost his job, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about the people who'll come after him, or those that are still there. “Is that it?”

“Yes, that's my intention.” Pendragon drops his cane on Gwaine's bed. “But I understand how that will be of no help to you.”

“It's not your fault that I got sacked.” Or at least Merlin gets that it's only peripherally so. “But thank you for your concern.”

“No.” Mr Pendragon's gaze takes on a wounded quality and he shakes his head sharply. It's so frantic, it comes across as fully genuine. “I don't need you to thank me.”

A frown scores Merlin's brow. “Then why are you here?”

“I thought I said it.” Mr Pendragon looks intently at him as if he's not sure how he got tangled in this conversation. “I came here to offer you a job.”

Though he wants to fight for his pride, Merlin's shoulders go down. “Mr Donovan would never engage me again.” In a week or two Merlin will be able to work again, but that's never been the point. “He has a dirty conscience about me and I'd be a reminder.”

“I don't want you to go back to the site.” Mr Pendragon scrunches his face up as though what he's said has just surprised even him. “No, I meant to give you a job myself.”

“Yourself?” Merlin can't help the escalating pitch of his voice. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“I find myself lacking a...” Mr Pendragon's eyebrows converge, wrinkling the skin above them. “...a butler. I'll take you on as one.”

Merlin laughs. He's fairly sure there's nothing comical about Mr Pendragon's statement but the sound just rattles out of him. “You just came out with that.”

“It doesn't mean I don't need new personnel.”

Merlin arches an eyebrow. “Admitting that's true--” And Merlin's not so certain it is. “I'm not a trained butler.”

Mr Pendragon hums thoughtfully, his mouth tensing at the sides. “It doesn't matter. I don't want someone else's butler, with habits I need to unpick.”

“I don't even know the basics.” Merlin's but a farmer at heart. He grew up in a humble household and even while he was in Dublin pursuing his teaching certification he lived simply. “I can't tell a fish fork from an ordinary fork.”

“It's not an arcane science,” Mr Pendragon tells him. “You can learn it.”

Merlin bites his lip, keeps his eyebrow pinched upwards. “Why would you waste all that time training someone who doesn't even know the most basic rules of service?”

Mr Pendragon rolls his shoulders back. “Are you questioning my choice?”

“Yes!” So as not to be rude, Merlin cups his mouth and looks away, giving his head a shake. “I'll tell you why you want me. You think you're doing me a good turn. You feel responsible because your da owns the building site I was sacked from. And I get why you would think that.” Merlin ponders whether it'd be alright to paste on a 'sir' but decides against it. He's making a point of being honest, so he'll go all the way. “But it's charity and I don't want to be indebted like that.”

Mr Pendragon sucks in a breath and his stomach caves. He goes pinched as if he's just been socked in the solar plexus. There's pain in the lines around his mouth. 

“This is not charity!” He pauses, seemingly reviewing his words. “Well, not entirely. I'm lending you a hand and you should accept it.”

“I'll go door to door if necessary,” Merlin says. “It's a matter of dignity.”

Mr Pendragon deflates. “I understand wanting dignity, but being a butler wouldn't deprive you of it.”

“It's not the office.” But then again Merlin suspects Mr Pendragon knows that well. “But the implications of it.”

“I fail to see what you might mean.”

“You do?” Now Merlin definitely thinks Pendragon is wilfully equivocating. “I think not.”

“You think I'm giving you something you don't deserve.” Mr Pendragon slips a hand in his pocket and attemtps to take a turn around the room. When he realises it's too small and cluttered for him to do much pacing, he only walks to the window. He stares at the view with his head tipped slightly back and his gaze less than focused. “But I think this is the least I can do for you.”

Maybe from Pendragon's perspective it works that way, Merlin reckons. “But you yourself can only commit to changing things at the site.”

“You call my offer charity.” Pendraon turns his head so he's looking back at Merlin. “I think I'm in your debt for all the harm my family's caused you.”

Merlin can't dismiss the notion out of hand as he has the rest of this conversation. Still, he believes sticking to his guns has some value. “You'd still be giving me compensation for a job I don't know how to do.”

“We should compensate you for the harm you incurred while working for us,” Arthur Pendragon says. “For the weeks you went without a job.” His eyes widen as though he knows he's made a point. “Because we failed to provide you with enough safety guarantees.”

That's not unreasonable, but Merlin wants nothing he hasn't earned. Yet because Mr Pendragon didn't sound unkind when he made his offer, Merlin chooses to be as polite as he can be. “I thank you, but I can't accept anything I haven't worked for.”

“But you can accept other kinds of charity.” Mr Pendragon's eyes spark.

“What do you mean?” Merlin's tried to work hard for everything he's got. It's a value his mother taught him and though they're separated by oceans he doesn't want to let her down.

“How are you paying rent?” Mr Pendragon asks. “How are you going to pay for the necessaries of life?”

“I'm going to find a new job.” Uncle Gaius promised after all and Merlin has faith in him. “I've paid for my first month and Gwaine will cover for my part the next.” He goes over how that sounds. “I'll obviously repay him as soon as I get a new position.”

“You're telling me you're willing to accept your friend's charity--” Mr Pendragon's face tightens. As he does that the bones in his face stick out. “--but not mine. What's the difference?”

“There is some!” Merlin doesn't want to mince words but he thinks there is.

“He can ill afford it.” Mr Pendragon arches an eyebrow. “I can.”

Merlin looks around. The room is small and the furniture minimal, in disrepair. They have food but it isn't plentiful and while they get by Merlin's already getting angsty about their future. Every week Mrs Stefano comes up the stairs, one hand on her apron and her hand held out. She clamours for rent and for supplements. 'Do you have any idea how long she has to stay up to make sure the stairs are clean?' They're actually grimy with dust deposits in the corners; they come in the shape of tall mounds climbing to a round apex. 'Do you know how much your breakfasts cost me?' Merlin and Gwaine only get a slice of bread – old – and a piece of mouldy cheese – hard – and with the crust still on. But even so they pay regularly because Mrs Stefano has children and they badly need all the support they can get. They wear clothes that don't fit anymore, the boy with his ankles on show and feet almost always bare, one of the girls with her mother’s hand-me-downs, cinched at the waist with two belts so she won't trip. When they go hungry they steal the food Gwaine buys at the Mulberry Street market. But neither Merlin nor Gwaine say anything because they can see how bright their eyes get with hunger. All in all Merlin knows he must get more money somehow. “If I accept--”

“You'll be free to tender your resignation whenever you want,” Mr Pendragon says. “You won't be a butler forever.”

“In that case,” Merlin says, taking a step forwards and offers his hand to shake, “I'll say yes.” 

**** 

The coffee set shines silver on a lacquered tray. Two cups sit in the wings of the coffee pot. They're not ornate, but rather white with a golden sheen dusting the rim. One is full while the other never contained any liquid, but Drea insists on bringing out two, because that's the custom and Arthur has no heart to tell her off. The newspaper lies open on page four and five where articles about the unrests in Russia feature.

In the picture a soldier stands with his bayonet up, as if ready for a charge. Because of the blurriness of the photograph his features are nothing but an indistinct muddle; they look like the face of blind authority. It might as well be; the army has after all been called up to deal with protesting workmen; a blood bath is expected. Arthur stopped reading a while ago because the news is ominous and because it reminds him of other workers and staff conditions elsewhere, among his people. They might not live in Tsarist Russia but the differences are not that many. If Merlin hadn't saved Percival, they'd have had blood on their hands just as sure as those Russian troops.

As Arthur takes a sip of his coffee, he shifts. His collar digs into into the back of his neck. It's new and so full of starch it hampers movement. He puts his finger between the hard fabric and his skin, but it hardly fits and he feels like choking. He gives up and stands. The creak of carriage wheels alerts him to the arrival of his hansom. Arthur walks to the window and pulls the drapes aside. As per Arthur's orders the coachman opens the door to the conveyance. Merlin ducks out, his foot still on the step.

Head tipped back, he surveys the house. He searches it from corner to corner and, as he does, his mouth slackens. The coachman tells him something and Merlin shakes his head. He lands on the sidewalk with his shoulders rolled back and his body braced as if for war. The coachman drives away, and Merlin idles in place, eyes on the door.

Arthur wants to go down to him and pull him inside, but something stops him from doing so. Instead he sits back at his breakfast table, drinks more of his coffee, which by now has gone fairly cold, and picks up his newspaper. He doesn't read, barely even skims. The pictures, he doesn't spare a glance to. The doorbell rings and tramping noises travel up from downstairs. The door closes and Drea speaks in her loud tones and is answered by lilting masculine tones. Footsteps sound up the stairs and a knock raps on the door.

“Come in,” Arthur says, putting down the cup and turning in his chair.

With a creak a door opens and Drea comes in followed by Merlin. “Mr Emrys, sir.” She curtsies but when she straightens out of it she rolls her eyes. “Our new butler, it seems.”

“Thank you, Drea.” Arthur makes a dismissive hand gesture. “I think you can go now.”

Casting her eyes heavenwards, Drea curtsies again. “As you wish, sir.” As she walks past Merlin she scoffs.

“I suppose I should have cleaned up better,” Merlin says, patting his chest. “But I don't own many fancy clothes.”

Arthur studies Merlin. He looks thinner than he did a week ago, his cheeks appearing hollower and his cheekbones standing out further, like blades. But his wrist is less swollen and not as black and blue as it was when Arthur found him in Brooklyn. He doesn't surreptitiously cradle it either as he did at the building site. Overall he seems to have healed, though his general health has suffered. “It doesn't matter.” Arthur waves a hand about. “You'll have a livery.”

Merlin goes red faced. “Must I?”

Arthur pinches his mouth. “I'm afraid so.” Merlin could try and make an effort here.

Merlin shifts his weight. With his good hand, he scratches the nape of his neck. “I'll look completely ridiculous.” A frown cuts lines on his forehead. “You didn't mention there'd be that to deal with when you offered me the job.”

Arthur pushes his coffee cup away and unbends his legs at the knee. “It went without saying.”

“Not really, no.” Merlin ducks his head. “I grew up in a simple way.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asks, probing Merlin's face for clues as to his thoughts and personality. He feels he has a right to, considering that from now on he's going to brush shoulders with him every day. After all, Merlin will become a part of his life. “Define simple.”

“I'm a farmer's son,” Merlin says and there's pride in the way he says that. He thrusts his chest out and he unconsciously grabs the lapels of his shabby jacket. “I've never been to a big house, not so much as glimpsed one for years.”

Arthur attempts to picture the life Merlin lived before he came over to America. He tries to visualise the farm he was born on. But he can't even begin to imagine it. He has no frame of reference for it. He's visited Europe, of course. His mother was, after all, English. But he's never been to Ireland, never planned to go, and has otherwise no idea which part of it Merlin comes from. When questioned about the country, he remembers offering precious little opinions of his own. He'd said, he remembers, that he hoped it would free itself from the English yoke just as the United States had. He'd received a clap on the back for the comment and was toasted for his patriotic statements. All of that doesn't help him frame Merlin now. He wants to, but he knows it's not his place to question a subordinate. “I see,” Arthur says though he fully doesn't. “I won't blame you for it then.”

“Nor should you.” Merlin's eyes flash and he pushes his legs forward. It's something of a battle stance.

“But I will require you to wear it during formal occasions.” Arthur pushes to his feet. “Let me show you around.”

Merlin turns around. “Isn't the girl downstairs supposed to do it?”

“Who, Drea?” Arthur sweeps past Merlin. “I don't think she likes you.”

“And you do?” The smile Merlin gives him is a self-deprecating quirk of the lips.

“You're here now.” Arthur huffs and opens the door.

Arthur shows Merlin around the house. He should probably start with the pantry, but he knows nothing about it, so he'd rather Merlin found a way to the ins and outs of it himself. Instead he leads him upstairs, showing him the guest rooms, the master bedroom, and the adjoining walk-in wardrobe. At the sight of it, Merlin makes a face. He arches his eyebrows at the array of suits and shoes, cravats and handkerchiefs. He twirls a hat around its hook and brushes a palm along the velvet padding of a morning jacket. He doesn't say anything, but Arthur gets his meaning all the same.  
From the wardrobe Arthur leads Merlin into his bedroom.

Striding across the room to open the windows, Arthur says, “I have no valet.” Arthur never saw the need for one. “So you'll double as that too.”

Merlin gapes like a fish. “A valet? I know even less about valeting than I do about being a butler.”

“There's not much you need know.” Arthur doesn't think being a servant can be that complicated. “You'll have to dress me in the mornings and undress me at night. Make sure Drea has ironed my clothes and tidied up in here. Keep a tally of my clothing.”

“I see.” Merlin looks around with a haunted look.

Leading Merlin downstairs again Arthur says, “As for your proper butlering duties, you'll be getting the door, checking in the flow of guests on formal occasions, overseeing the dining room and seeing to the upkeep of all kitchenware. You'll polish the silver...”

Merlin makes a pained noise Arthur pretends not to hear.

“Hand me my correspondence and go over inventories.”There's something about the lost expression on Merlin's face that goads Arthur to go on and on. He wants to see when Merlin will object, raise the banner of revolt. He saw him do it at the site when he spoke against the foreman and he wants to trigger that again. “Iron my newspapers – I like them free of creases – and run my bath.”

Merlin coughs into his fist. “Anything else, my lord?”

Arthur refrains from pointing out they they're in America and have no nobility system in place. They both know that and it's not entirely accurate anyway. They do have elites. Arthur's not so naive as to be unaware of that. 

“That's enough for now.” Arthur turns sideways, opens a door and leads them to the servants' quarters. They stalk into the kitchen. Drea sits knitting in a chair and when she sees them, she stands but doesn't stop knitting. Somehow she manages to continue crossing needles even while she curtsies. Arthur rolls his eyes but doesn't bother reprimanding her. He has no intention of firing her anyway. Leading him up a flight of narrow stairs, which are uncarpeted, Arthur guides Merlin in front of an unadorned door.

Merlin quirks an eyebrow at him and Arthur turns the handle.

The room that opens is much smaller than any of the chambers on the first and second floors. However, knowing that Merlin was about to call, Arthur had it tidied up. The result, he must say, isn't distasteful. The bed is perhaps small but the comforter is plush and there's a sufficient amount of pillows. That stack should satisfy the fussiest of sleepers. Though it faces the kitchen yard, the window is large and ushers in plenty of light. “These are your quarters,” Arthur says. “If you need any other supplies, you need but ask.”

“Thank you but, er,” Merlin says, shifting from foot to foot. “I've got lodgings.”

“But they're small and squalid.” Before calling on Merlin, Arthur had never been in such cramped, slummy quarters in his life. Nor had he ever considered clearing the door of such a place. “You don't need to live there anymore.”

“But it's my place,” Merlin says, “what I can afford--”

“You can afford better now.” Arthur doesn't think he's paying that meanly. In fact, as salaries go, the one he's offering is by no means paltry. “What reason would you have to go back there?”

Merlin's expression sours and his eyes shine with an indignation that colours even his face red. “The fact that it's my home here in New York.” His tones become wilder, more animated. “Because Gwaine was kind enough to share his home when I had no place to go.”

“I see.” So Merlin does spark when pricked. He's ready to fight any battle he thinks worth arming himself for. That is something Arthur values knowing.

“I don't mean to sound ungrateful.” Wide-eyed Merlin eyes the room. His gaze travels from corner to corner of it and there's a measure of stupefaction reflected in it. “Because I am.” He paused, frowns lightly, then continues. “Grateful, I mean--” He sighs and drops his shoulders. “God knows I've never been anywhere quite as fancy as this.” Shuffling forwards he runs his hand along the curve of the bed's footboard, chasing the wrought-iron whorls of it. “I appreciate the offer--”

Arthur doesn't want gratefulness; he wants to hear more about Merlin instead, so he waves away all justifications and says, “You've never been somewhere like this?” Compared to the rest of the house this room is pretty humble. It's just a servant's space. “Really?”

“I told you I was a farmer,” Merlin says, tearing his gaze away from Arthur's to point it again at the furniture. “Maybe some of the halls at Trinity.”

“Trinity?”

“College.” Merlin wraps a hand around the bedpost's topper. “It's...”

“I know,” Arthur says, his face heating. “I just thought...”

“That I never saw the inside of a university?” Merlin's cheek pulls. “That I was completely illiterate?”

“No, I--” Arthur doesn't know how to explain. Merlin's tones are those of a country lad. He's not an expert on Irish brogues but Merlin's sounds rough around the edges to him, his is the burr of a peasant. Because of that, Arthur might have made assumptions, but the truth is he knows little about Merlin's personal history. “I never meant to imply--”

“You assumed--” Instead of getting angry, Merlin smiles. There's no sourness to it either but a note of pain travels through. “But that's all right.”

“No, it's not.” Arthur's never meant to belittle Merlin, but rather to help him now that he needs it. It's but fairness after what his father's people have done to him. “I was offensive.”

“It doesn't much matter.” Merlin turns so that he's standing sideways to Arthur and only his profile is highlighted. “I've been getting used to it.”

“You shouldn't.” Arthur's always hated injustice. He's always rejected it wherever he's seen it. That someone like Merlin, who's proving a wholly decent person, has been the victim of it inflames him even more. He grinds his jaws together and says. “You should never be put in that position.”

Merlin pivots round and meets Arthur's gaze. “I'll be happy to use this room from time to time.” Once more he sweeps his gaze round it and his expression mellows, becomes pleased. “When I've worked too late or something.”

“So you'll start soon?” A motion of hope crosses Arthur's heart.

“Tomorrow,” Merlin says, “tomorrow.”

 

**** 

His head bent, Merlin polishes the silver with a toothbrush. He moves it sideways and up and down, around the base of candlesticks and along the edges of pill boxes. He scrubs at the edges of caskets and brushes off smudges from along the length of flatware. The centrepiece is the worst and a total beast to polish, with all those fiddly little bits and multiple plates to bring to a shine, each branching off a central stem. Merlin pours more polish onto a piece of old newspaper, dips the toothbrush in it, and applies the bristles to a whorl etched deep into the top silver patina.

Merlin's whistling softly – a Galway melody – when Drea bursts into the pantry. “You'll have to bring the master coffee,” she says. “I'm not doing it.”

Merlin's not sure he follows. “He rang for coffee.”

“Yes, what else do you think I'm talking about?” Drea shakes her head. “I'm too busy making cake for tonight. You'll have to go.”

Merlin spares the silver a glance. Ten pieces still need looking after and that's just the contents of his first cabinet. 

“I suppose needs must.” He sighs. “Can you ready a tray?”

“No.” She twirls round and leaves the pantry. “I've better things to do.”

As she disappears, Merlin gapes in her wake. “The cheek.”

Even without assistance Merlin sets up a tray and takes it upstairs. On the threshold to the drawing room, he stumbles forward. He doesn't drop anything but the milk jug upends itself and spills its contents onto the serviettes he'd piled in the corner. As Merlin recovers his balance and rights the jug, he hears voices wafting over from the drawing room.

“There must be a legal caution we can tender them,” Mr Pendragon says. “There must be a way to safeguard the workers.”

“Unfortunately there isn't.” The voice is one known to Merlin. Its calm tones are those of the man who was with Arthur at the building site. “That kind of legislation simply doesn't exist.”

“You're positive, Leon?”

“Workers have precious few rights, Arthur,” Leon says. “I mean there are unions but they're better at negotiating wages than making sure workers are safe.”

“That must be changed.” Mr Pendragon sounds earnest, as if his worries are pressing. “I must be able to do something.”

Merlin should probably knock at this point and make it known he's there. But something stops him. He wants to hear what Mr Pendragon says. He wants to listen to his true opinion. Somehow that seems of paramount importance. He should probably feel some compunction about it. He ought probably to stop. But the conversation hardly verges on the private and knowing Mr Pendragon's real stance on workers rights issues seems really important at the moment.

Shifting as noiselessly as he can Merlin leans closer to the door.

“Short of taking direct control from your father,” Leon says. “I don't see how that can be effected.”

“I have my mother's legacy,” Mr Pendragon says. “While a lot of it is tied up in England, some is not.”

“I don't follow.” Confusion seeps off Leon's voice. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I intend to use that part of my legacy to buy a small company.” Papers get shuffled about. “I hope the money accruing from it will help me buy out my father.”

“Arthur--”

Before Mr Pendragon can say anything of a more personal nature Merlin knocks. He's told to enter and, with a little juggling, he manages to both open the door and hold on to the tray. When he enters, Leon snaps closed the folder of documents he had lying open on the table and relaxes back against the chair.

Merlin places his load on the table and steps back.

Mr Pendragon says, “You forgot your gloves, Merlin.

Since there's a smile on his lips, Merlin doesn't take it as reproof. “I've still got to get into the groove of things?”

“Merlin,” Leon asks, scanning Merlin's face, recognition flashing in his. “Arthur isn't he the worker who got injured at the Avalon site?”

“Merlin?” As he answers Leon, Mr Pendragon grins at Merlin and one of his eyebrows points upwards. “Yes, he is. I offered him a job.”

“As a...” Leon rubs at his beard. “Footman?”

“Utrained butler.” Mr Pendragon doesn't take his eyes off Merlin as he says that. “He's utterly appalling as of yet, but he'll learn, I guess.” He shifts his gaze onto Leon. “And I do owe him one.”

“I see.” Leon's eyes widen a notch and he moves in his chair, subtly scratching at his neck. “Well, I hope it goes well for you both.”

“Pour Leon some coffee, Merlin.” Mr Pendragon points his chin at the china.

As Merlin pours, Mr Pendragon resumes speaking to Leon. “I've had a look at their books and with a little boost to their production, those companies could make me enough of a profit to buy out my father in a couple of years.”

Leon knocks an eyebrow at Merlin then sends a look at Mr Pendragon.

Mr Pendragon says, “You can talk in front of Merlin.” He gazes at him and his lips are set at a quirk. “Merlin won't run to my father and reveal all our plans to him.”

Leon clears his throat. “If you say so.”

Merlin finishes pouring and hands the teacups to Mr Pendragon and his friend. When he's done, Mr Pendragon thanks him and he takes the tray away. When Leon goes, Merlin hands him his coat and umbrella. It's evening by the time Mr Pendragon summons him again. He asks Merlin to lay the table for one. Drea complains about Mr Pendragon not dining outside often enough, like all fine gents, but Merlin tunes her out.

The night is still by the time Mr Pendragon dismisses him for the day. Merlin wraps his coat around him and his scarf around his neck. Stars are out but gaslight drowns them. It's not the kind of sky Merlin's used to. Only a slice of it shows between buildings and the moon hides behind the mass of chimneys.

Though he has the money for it, Merlin doesn't take the subway. He could, but he doesn't like the idea of it all. he's used to walking to get places, to going by cart and watching the view go by, and while he took plenty of trams in Dublin, these subterranean trains make him feel like he's choking.

As he moves towards Brooklyn, the facades of buildings narrow and simplify. The grand porches, the lofty colonnades, the sky-high structures give way to lower tenements, cluttered exteriors, wide warehouses. Streets narrow and become building sites, unpaved, snow-covered stretches blurred by the shadows of the edifices lining the block. The shriek of a locomotive bellows in the distance and merges with the tolling of ferry-bells.

It's nothing like home. It's a foreign jungle of concrete and iron. There are no fields melting into the darkness of a balmy night; no hedges smelling like earth, no burrows teeming with small animals who critter away.

The street stretches away and dips in the far distance under the framework of the elevated railroad. The stoop-line on either side opens up to a vista of small, dingy shops with grimy windows, meat-markets, and third-rate theatres. Wedged between a flower factory and a blacksmith's shop is Merlin's building, a five story red-brick tenement, Merlin's come to recognise with a pang of familiarity.

So as to avoid Mrs Giovanno, Merlin goes up the fire escape and lands on the same floor as his apartment. He crosses the creaking hallway and opens the door to his.

Gwaine sits at the table, a plate full of spaghetti resting in front of him, a pewter fork in his hand. There's a napkin around his neck; it's chequered, red and white, fairly clean.

When he sees him enter, Gwaine says, “Ah, Merlin, just in time. My friend Antonio gifted me with a jar of homemade sauce and I bought spaghetti to go with. Gansevoort market is a god-send.”

Merlin goes over to the sideboard. An open jar stands on it. He lifts it and gives the contents a sniff. It smells like summer, like ripe tomatoes and fresh herbs, and Merlin stomach gives a little kick to warn him he hasn't eaten since lunch, which was toast and eggs at Mr Pendragon's. “I'll have some.”

“There's some leftover spaghetti.”

Merlin pours the spaghetti onto a plate: they're not so hot anymore but the range is downstairs in Mrs Giovanno’s part of the building and Merlin doesn't fancy going down there. He'd get a scolding, and one fit to make his ears ring for days. So he pours sauce on top of the pasta, tosses the single strands of it around, and moves the plate onto their shared table.  
“So,” Merlin says, digging into the food, “aside from the sauce gifting how was your day at work?”

Gwaine munches at forketfuls of food. “No one died, building went up a floor.”

“Good.” Merlin has trouble wrapping the spaghetti around his fork. Since coming to New York, he's seen plenty of Italians eat this kind of food with ease. But out in County Galway it's still a pretty rare dish and Merlin's no good at eating it without spraying sauce all around. “And how's Percival?”

“Mighty fine thanks to you,” Gwaine says, even as he eats on. “Thinking of taking literacy classes, says he wants a different future.”

“Well I'm glad for him.” Merlin forks some of his food but waits before bringing it to his mouth. “Nobody deserves a chance more than him.”

“And how's working at Pendragon's?” Gwaine salts his food. “The hell I think it is?”

“Drea likes to complain, but doesn't like to put in the work,” Merlin says, smiling because even if the girl's antics can be irritating from up close, they're not so unpalatable at a remove, when he's at home with Gwaine and sharing tales about his day. “Today she refused to serve coffee on the plea she was making cake. Her making cake consisted in watching the oven purr on.”

Gwaine drinks a swig of wine straight from the bottle. “I, for one, think her a spirited lass, protesting against the workings of capitalism.”

“I'm against capitalism too, Gwaine.” Merlin believes Gwaine has forgotten that. Just because Merlin took the job at Pendragon's that doesn't mean he wants to stick it to the masses. “Serving coffee is one of the duties she's paid for.”

“By our mighty lord capitalist Arthur Pendragon,” Gwaine says. “Golden boy of the American elites.”

“He's not as bad as you make him out to be.” In the past Merlin never went to the defence of the rich. In his experience they were blessed enough not to need his championing of their cause. Also most of the Irish elite are English and, as a Galway man, Merlin's never felt right praising it in any way. They've taken enough from his country. But this is a new world and, while the basics haven't changed and exploitation of the poor will always be in place, he can't judge people by his old standards. “He's making an effort.”

Gwaine pushes up an eyebrow. “What sort?”

“He wants to ensure workers have more rights, that they are safer.” Merlin isn't sure he should divulge private business information he only learned because of his position in the Pendragon household. So he only says, “And he's taking steps to make that a reality.”

“Bah.” Gwaine relaxes in his chair and slaps a hand on his thigh. “Bah, I'm not entirely sure.”

Merlin sinks his fork back into a pile of pasta. “I'm growing more and more confident.”

Gwaine waggles his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything. Merlin supposes Gwaine is right, that they should wait and see, and yet he still harbours some kind of hope he wasn't wrong. He wants Mr Pendragon to be a good man.

*****

 

Merlin removes the plates from the table and places them on the tray sitting on the sideboard. He piles them one on top of the other. When he's got a stable mound, he grabs the tray by the handles and lifts it off the counter.

Before he can get to the door, Arthur says, “Stay.”

Merlin makes a face at him. “Pardon?”

“You don't need to take that away now.” Arthur gestures at the pile of dishes Merlin was about to carry back to the kitchens. “Stay a moment.”

Merlin eyes the door, then Arthur. He walks back to the table and sets the tray on it. When Arthur arches an eyebrow, he pulls back a chair and sits in it. At first he stays perched at the edge but then he huffs, shakes his head and relaxes, leaning fully against the backrest. It's then that he cocks his head and arches an eyebrow at Arthur.

“Any wine?” Arthur asks, touching his hand to the decanter's handle.

“Um.” Merlin coughs into his hand. “Can I? I mean really?”

“Of course.” Who does Merlin take him for? He wouldn't entice Merlin with promises just to let him down. “Have as much as you want.”

Merlin pours. He doesn't fill the glass, but rather leaves it half empty. He cradles it in his hands, looks at the liquid he sloshes around. “Good,” he says, when he's tasted some. “What is it?”

“Charmes Chambertin, 1898.” Though it should have been the butler's job, Arthur chose it himself. He went down to the wine cellar, brushed cobwebs off the bottle, and opened it all alone. “I have three bottles of that. It's my favourite.”

Merlin's eyes flare a notch. Because he's just drunk, his cheeks bulge. He swallows and breathlessly says, “How much money did I actually guzzle down?”

Arthur waves that away. “It doesn't matter. Wine was made to be drunk.”

Merlin looks at the bottle with suspicion, massages his leg nervously. “I don't feel comfortable wasting so much when I know that bottle cost enough to feed half my home village for a month.”

“You could send some of your wages home.” Arthur has heard some of his father's workers chat among themselves. A lot of them often speak of sending parts of their salaries back to their native country. “Do you feel satisfied I give you enough?”

“You pay me fair.” Merlin's eyes narrow and his facial muscles tighten. “It's more than enough.”

Arthur drinks some of his wine himself. “We're not having the charity talk again, are we?”

“No.” Merlin's features ease a fraction. “I hope not.”

A burden lifts off right the middle of Arthur's chest. He sinks further back into his chair and stretches out a leg, his hand wrapped around the bulk of his own glass. The fire in the fireplace crackles and burns, sputters as it filled the room with warmth. Arthur watches the flames dance in flickering patterns that match those of the heavy clouds shifting outside, steeping the night in moonlight. 

“I'd rather talk about your home country.”

“Now?” Merlin asks, a wrinkle curling up from his mouth. It's not nearly a smile as much as a wry twist of the lips. “You want me to talk about my home town rather than have me take that tray--” He lets his gaze fall on it, on the pile of dishes dirtied by gravy and sour cream. “downstairs?”

“I'd rather have a chat.” Arthur wants to hear about Merlin's home, the far-off shore he comes from. Some of it he can imagine for himself, but there are so many blanks in his picturing of it, he wants Merlin to fill the gap. “Unless you want to rush home.”

“I have no reason to.” Like Arthur, Merlin looks to the fire too. His skin flushes from the warmth of it. He doesn't push his chair back, but rather leans forward as if he wants to enjoy the embrace of it. He puts his hands out and fans them outwards. His fingers are long, bony, like pianist's rather than a farmer's. “Gwaine is dining at his Italian friend’s tonight.”

“So you have time to...” Arthur doesn't know which words to choose. He can't dub this a conversation between like minded gentlemen because Merlin's in his employ. Though he does think there's gentlemanliness in Merlin, there are barriers between them he can't easily raze down. But he's not only enquiring on a servant's well being either. This is something in between. “Talk to me about your home country.”

“About Galway?” A smile blooms on Merlin's lips. “I could talk about it for days.”

“Really?” Somehow Arthur doesn't think this an exaggeration on Merlin's part. He can detect the flaring of his eyes, the softening of his smile, the longing sigh he pushes out. But he teases an answer anyway. “For days?”

“It's a land of such beauty you have no idea of it,” Merlin says of it. “In summer it's all devastatingly green and close to the coast the air smells like the sea. If you climb to the top of the cliffs you can see all the way to heaven.” He wets his lips. “And in winter... Well, it does get more bleak and there's less to put on the table.” Merlin's tone gets drenched in nostalgia. “But the land gets covered in frost and there's an austere charm to it. I love it.” He sends Arthur an amused glance. “You'd love it too.”

“I'm sure I'd like the experience.” Merlin's words help Arthur picture the place and the stab of longing in Merlin's voice supplies Arthur's imaginings with emotion. “Tell me about your farm.”

“It's a bit ramshackle,” Merlin says, with a twist of the lips. “It's not grand. We don't have running water and that--” He points his finger at the light bulb hiding behind the sconce's glass shade. “Is not something we get. It's oil lamps all the way.” He says that with a toothy smile on his face as if the inconvenience is actually a blessing. “But thanks to my dad I've got a nice and tidy pockteful of land.”

“Who's tending it now?” Arthur feels Merlin is opening up, sinking into a flow of memories he seems to want to share. Arthur finds himself wanting to partake into that world that is opening up to him. It's a new one and an enticing one; one that offers new slants to his outlook.

“My mother.” Merlin's expression goes fond. “She looked after the farm when I was Dublin and she's managing it now.”

“And she's doing it all alone?” Merlin's words clearly imply it, but Arthur asks all the same.

“She's a strong woman my ma.” As he says that, Merlin rolls his shoulders back. “She raised me virtually alone, with no one to help, and a farm to run.”

“That's brave.” His own mother, Arthur feels, would have admired Merlin's, would have liked her. She always one was for supporting other women. Arthur still has the list of charities his mother supported. It's a long list, scrawled in her tiny hand, the names crammed together. It's also a standing testimonial of her credo. “But what about your father?”

Shadows cross Merlin's face and his mouth thins. “He died when I was young.” His throat works and he swallows loudly. “Too young to remember him well.”

Arthur knows how that works. His memories of his mother are few and far between. They all come with this golden halo, this honeyed quality, and he can't really tell whether he only saw her in the summer when he was visiting Tintagel or if he's reconstructed them in his mind and changed them to fit his dream of her. “My mother died when I was young.”

“I'm sorry.” Merlin blanches and his expression grows softer. “I didn't mean to remind you of sad things.”

“I know.” Arthur believes Merlin wouldn't harm a soul. He has a staunch sense of fairness, of justice, and that seems to extend to his interactions with others. “I rarely mention her.” He doesn't because his chest always tightens when he does. Because his voice breaks and his eyes get misty. But today they haven't. There's still pain involved in the memory but it's something gentle, measured, a pinprick of melancholy that doesn't stop him from enjoying remembering. “But I would love to do it more.”

Merlin nods thoughtfully, his gaze warming. “I hope you're able to.”

Arthur hopes for a repeat of this too. “Thank you, Merlin.”

Merlin stands. “Do you want me to bring up a coffee before I go?”

“No.” Arthur can tell Merlin is tired. His eyes are puffy, the lids a notch red. He slouches more now than he does in the mornings and when his control slips his features slacken with fatigue. “You can go.”

“Thank you.” Merlin grins. It's a little wary but it has the power of raw honesty about it. “See you tomorrow at breakfast.”

“See you tomorrow.” Arthur hears the door close softly behind Merlin.

 

**** 

 

_Dear Merlin,_

_Thank you for your last letter. It tidied me up for days. I read it and reread it every time I had a bit of leasure. I pored over it in the mornings before starting the day. I went over it while I took a break from my chores and I had it in my pockets while I worked in the fields. All the while I could hear you say the words and you didn't feel far away at all, my child._

_But enough of this melancholy. I want to start this letter from scratch and say that your news made me very happy. I'm glad you found a new job. I'm even more glad you no longer work at that building site – I thought it dangerous from the very first. And I can't say that I'm not satisfied you're receiving a better salary. Money may not be a key to happiness, but it certainly helps._

_About that. I can't keep all the money you sent me. I'm grateful for it, my dear Merlin, but it's too much. With half of it I hired a young labourer to help me on the farm. I've already paid him six months in advance and he's proved a godsend. The rest of your funds I can't keep. It's yours and it's for you to build a nice life for yourself with. Your generosity does you credit, my boy, but you must learn to think of yourself too. You have a right to a nice life over there._

_Your friends say they don't want to be reimbursed either. They're sending you your money back. I won't try and repeat Will's words. They never fail to make me blush even when Will checks himself. That boy... But I will relay the gist of it. They say they made that collection because they wanted to see you happy. They want nothing in return. Daegal insisted that sending it back was quite insulting. On the other hand they've heard that in America girls pose for cheeky pictures and they want you to send some over. Will reddened right up to the tip his hair as he said that to my face, but say it he did so I'm passing it on._

_Let's see what else I've forgotten. (I'm not quite as young as I used to be and sometimes my memory plays me some nasty tricks.) Oh right. Daegal wants to know about baseball. He asks about the rules and wonders whether you've been to a game. He swore the whole thing was rather silly and it made no sense, but he seemed to me to be quite eager to learn. He's a curious boy that Daegal, truth be told. Well, so now you know what you'll have to put in the next packages yous send home._

_Daegal and Will are truly fine lads. You couldn't have better friends. I hope however that you're making new ones in America. Gwaine sounds like a good Irish lad. I'm glad you're sharing with someone from home. It must make things easier. I'm not sure I could get used to those New York accents so fast. After a while I'd long for one from home. I hope the young man you saved – was his name Pericival, I keep thinking it must be – is all right and flourishing._

_As for your employer, I was saddened by your tale of him. It seems he's trying to make a difference and it's a hard enough task in this world of ours. We can only do our best and use what we're given to effect the changes we strive for. I feel for him. The young man clearly misses his mother and is trying to please her. Overall, I think destiny threw you in the path of a good employer. Never forget, though, to always hold your head high. It's your job to serve him, but you're your own person always._

_Sending you the warmest of embraces,_

_Your mother_

 

****

 

Arthur traverses the long gallery, walking past niches and alcoves crowned by archways, the carved motif at their apex, lions with their maw open, looking down at him. On the other side windows open, facing the faraway sea. The sun drenching the coastline bathes the passageway in a pearly haze. The drawn up sashes usher in a breeze that stirs the soft draperies and the flowers standing in vases. They flutter as they fall, carpeting the gallery in petals. Like salt on the tongue, the tang of the sea is also on the air.

From the bottom of the passage music wafts down. It's a pliant, lilting melody, passionate but inherently sad. Fingers must be hitting the piano keys with relentless rage because the music that travels across pounds, tears, waxes stronger, reaching for a crescendo that's like a storm. It's dark choppy music, full of false starts and minor chords, the crescendoes startling in their raw force. Arthur walks in the direction of the sound, stands and listens.

As the set of chords fades away into silence, Arthur enters the room. The room is marble paved , large, older and more austere than the rest of the house. In the centre of the room a balcony opens, overlooking swathes of greenery. At the piano sits Morgana. She's scowling at the keyboard, her mouth pinched, her nostrils flaring.

She takes to playing again, a sonata this time. Arthur recognises it from somewhere, probably from his childhood memories, her taking music lessons while he played with toy soldiers on the carpet. His tin army was old, worn, displaying battered lances and hollowed armour. It was as ramshackle as Morgana's music. She's since improved. Now she plays with the mastery and assurance of a gifted adult. Not today however. Today her playing makes no concessions for softness, for the brio of an allegro, for the gentle melancholy of a dirge. Morgana is playing fast, pounding the piano with her rhythm. Her forearms are bare. The dainty shirt she wears is unbuttoned at the wrist and rolled up to her elbows. Its not meant to do that and the fabric strains in places but Morgana doesn't seem of a mind to heed that. She hammers at the keayboard until the last note of a long glissando passage is sounded. When the song's over she slams the piano lid down.

“So,” Arthur says, perhaps more airily than he ever intended. “What are you angry about?”

Morgana looks daggers at him; her lips thin waspishly.

“Ah, you won't say.” He saunters around the roomful, enjoying the breeze filtering in from the window. “In that case I won't ask.”

“What makes you think I'm angry? She stands up and rummages among the piles of music she has resting on top of the grand piano until she locates the piece she was looking for. She sets it up on the stand and sits back down on the stool, but she doesn't lift the lid and doesn't play. “I'm not.”

“Please, Morgana.” Arthur walks towards the piano, resting a hand on its lacquered surface. It's solid, cool, smooth. “You were hammering this poor thing within an inch of its life.”

She scoffs. “You can't tell Monteverdi from Beethoven. How can you tell if I was hammering away?”

“I can recognise a sound pounding.” He makes his gaze bear on Morgana. “You know I won't think any the less of you if you tell me what's wrong.”

Morgana places both her palms on the closed lid of the piano. She studies them as if the answer to all her quandaries lies in the making out of all the patterns veins and tendons form.

“Morgana.”

“Father wrote,” she says, retaining her pinched look. “His letter was four lines long and had no preamble.”

Arthur can well imagine. “What did his letter say?”

“He said Leon paid him a visit.” Morgana looks up and she looks lost, her eyes wide, her sneer fading, her skin getting paler and paler.

This Arthur had probably better sit down for. He edges onto the stool Morgana occupies. “What did poor Leon do?”

She shifts, looks vacantly ahead. “Apparently he proposed.”

If he weren't in the presence of his sister, Arthur would swear. “What did Father do?”

Morgana's lips tremble before she purses them. “He showed him the door.”

“Knowing Father it could have been worse.”

Morgana drills holes in his skull with her angry gaze. “Before he did, he told him that everybody has their level and Leon wasn't on the same as mine.”

Arthur whistles. “That was harsh.” But then again their father knows how to be that. He's never had any qualms putting people down, including his children. “I'm sorry for poor Leon.”

Morgana's gaze narrows on him. “And that's all you're going to say?”

“What else can I say?” He's on Morgana's side. He always was and always will be. That is precisely what being siblings means. But he doesn't think he's got anything further to contribute on this. “We can't change him.”

Morgana stands and walks to the window. Her skirt trails after her, dragging on the carpet. She stops by the balcony, placing her hand on the frame. As the breeze touches her, her clothes billow and her ringlets, most of which have escaped from a bun that was never too tight to begin with, dance. “I thought you'd help me.”

Morgana is truly beginning to get on his nerves. “I understand your disappointment, but I don't see how I can help you.”

“You need to help me see Leon.”

“I think you can easily see him behind Father's back.” Arthur's not so naive as to think she hasn't before. “Just ignore him.”

“You don't understand.” Morgana doesn't turn, doesn't look at him. “I need you to give a ball.”

The non sequitur throws Arthur. “A ball?” Even the word sounds strange in context. “What has that to do with Leon?”

“I need you to give a ball.” Morgana fists the curtain with inward curling fingers. The fabric creases, wrinkles, and some of the lines in it look permanent, hard to smooth out. “And invite Leon.”

That makes considerably more sense, but as much as he loves Morgana, he can't meddle. “Morgana, I don't want to act as a go between.”

She whirls around. “I'd do it for you.” She holds her chin up and though her lip trembles there's fire in her eyes. “I've supported you in everything and you know it well.”

There's much he and Morgana have never openly spoken about but it's always been tacitly understood. At least so Arthur thinks. With that in sight, interpreting Morgana's words is easy. 

“That's uncharitable, Morgana.”

“It's not.” Morgana crosses her arms and sticks her bosom out. “I'm asking for so little and you won't do it so as to save yourself from Uther's ire.”

Morgana is being ridiculous, but then she often is, especially when she considers herself aggrieved. “This is not what it is.” Arthur prefers to steer clear of his father, more so lately with all the plans he has brewing, but he's not afraid of him. He would not let himself be. “But I'd rather not come between you and Leon when it's a private matter.”

“It won't be a private matter for long, if you don't interfere,” Morgana says. “It won't be much of anything.”

Though Morgana's face didn't change and her voice didn't waver, Arthur can see she's moved. He can tell she's reining herself in. Her posture is too stiff; her eyes are too bright. There's a sheen to them which is a precursor to tears. And Morgana never cries. 

“I can't hold a ball at my house. It's not large enough.” When Arthur bought the house he had peace and seclusion in mind. He'd always lived a life dictated by society, one of show and ostenation. “And Merlin wouldn't even know where to begin organising such an event.”

“Merlin?”

“My new butler.”

“You've got a butler.” Morgana's tone rises. “You're letting me down because you don't want to bother your new servant.”

“Merlin's hardly that.” When Morgana widens her eyes in stupor, Arthur corrects his course so she can understand. “He was a worker at the Avalon building site. I gave him a job when he lost his in circumstances he couldn't have helped.” Arthur wishes to say they were heroic but he withholds that information. “He's brand new and not a butler at all.” Merlin tries, he really does, but anyone with any knowledge of how households are run would be able to tell that he makes a rather poor head of stuff. He's even worse than the most inexperienced valet. “He's learning but he can't cope with a ball.”

“So I'm to be let down?” As her eyes flare, Morgana's eyebrow perch upwards. “My wishes are to be dismissed so as not to inconvenience the new butler!”

“Morgana, that isn't exactly what I meant.” Though Arthur would rather spare Merlin a full blown social event, that was not why he said what I did. “But my household is little more than a bachelor's quarters.” Granted, over time Arthur has spoilt himself a little and bought a house with all the conveniences. He's furnished it in a way that would suit his taste. Since he's got defined ones, his home looks less like the temporary abode of your average young gentleman and more like a permanent retreat. But that doesn't mean it would serve Morgana's purposes. “We both know you like to entertain rather lavishly. I cannot provide that.”

“I'm not asking for anything extravagant,” Morgana says, regressing to a childish tone. “Just for a place to host a ball in.”

“Morgana.” How many times does Arthur have to explain himself?

“Don't Morgana me.” She cuts across the room and takes a seat on the sofa. She picks up her embroidery. She's stitched roses onto white silk but the flowers sit at uneven intervals and they're of different shape and size. The other lines of decoration are wobbly and tentative. Some would-be vines trail off into nothingness. “If you had any heart you wouldn't say that.”

He should have known he'd be accused of being unempathetic. “Then what do you propose I do?”

“Hold the ball here.” Morgana puts down her embroidery without having added a single stitch. “But in your own name.”

Arthur squeezes the bridge of his nose. “What difference would it make?”

“A world of difference, Arthur.” As she leans forward in her seat and turns towards him, her clothes rustle. “I wouldn't be the one doing it and Father couldn't object?”

“He will see through it.” Their father is anything but stupid.

“It doesn't matter.” Morgana scoffs. There's a strain to her voice. “Formally, he'll have no grounds to object.”

At that Arthur only mutters.

“In actuality I'll do everything myself,” Morgana says. “The entire organisation will be on me. All you have to do is show up and say it's your fête rather than mine.”

“Morgana--”

Morgana squints her eyes at him and her mouth pinches sideways. “I've already lost a husband, don't let me lose a partner for want of trying.”

To that there's little Arthur can say without sounding like a proper fairy tale ogre.

 

****

Arthur's wardrobe is really deep. It smells like camphor and naphthalene and other herbs packed in small satchels. Jackets hang one beside the other together with trousers, coats and overcoats. All the shirts lie in drawers but their collars sit on a shelf extending over the rail. 

“Do you want to take this with you?” The jacket is nice, pin striped and with wide lapels. If he were prone to dressing fancily Merlin would wear it. “Should I pack it?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Merlin,” Mr Pendragon says, as he takes sips of his liqueur from a squat glass. “It's a morning summer suit. It's not right for a ball.”

“I see.” Merlin doesn't, but he's learnt his brand of common sense doesn't apply when it comes to grandees. “Is this one fine then?”

Mr Pendragon tuts. “Of course not. That's a rowing jacket.” His mouth lifts at the corners. “I'm not going rowing.”

Merlin's shoulders go down in a slump. He turns to face the wardrobe and scratches at his head. 

“I'm not even going to suggest this one.” Mr Pendragon is going to veto the idea anyway.

“And you'd be right.” Mr Pendragon takes a sip, tastes his lips and tips his glass at the wardrobe. “I should hand you an etiquette manual.”

Merlin is not looking forward to such a read. “Why don't we make this easier? Why don't you tell me what I should pack and I will.”

Mr Pendragon saunters over. He takes a look at the contents of his wardrobe but shows little interest in them. “Pack a morning suit, two tuxedos, a few shirts and collars, some bow ties. I don't think that's too hard.”

Clearly Mr Pendragon has no idea of what's hard for Merlin. He can spot a bow tie fine; he can tell a tuxedo apart from day wear. But he doesn't know which shirts are good for evening suits and which ones are better paired with morning ensembles. “Care to tell me which ones you prefer?”

“I like simplicity,” Mr Pendragon says, “Oh and when you're done with this, pack your own things.”

“My things?” Long after he's asked that, Merlin's lips stay parted.

“Of course.” Arthur's forehead gets heavy with lines. “I'm sure you don't mean to parade naked at my sister's.”

After some little spluttering Merlin manages to say, “Your sister's?” Surely there must be some mistake there. That's not a part of their arrangement. “What have I got to do with your sister's party?”

“You'll be coming as a valet.”

“I'm your butler.” Even Merlin knows that butlers traditionally stay put.

“I do remember that, Merlin.” Mr Pendragon shakes his head as if he he doesn't understand how Merlin could be questioning his capacity to retain memories. “But I have no valet. I've never needed one before. I can't be received at my sister's without one.”

“Your sister would turn you out because you have no valet?” This is further proof Merlin will never understand the upper classes. Be they American or from Ireland they all behave in ways that make no sense. They create more trouble for themselves than there need be and involve innocent people as well. “That's rather cold.”

“She won't turn me out.” Mr Pendragon rolls his eyes. “Well, not unless I make enemies of her guests. Which I won't.”

“Well, then.” Merlin takes a few jackets off their pegs. “Why would you need me?"

"I can't possibly dress and undress myself."

"I'm sorry but how did you ever manage to survive when you had no butler and no footman." Merlin knows that Mr Pendragon went about respectably dressed even before he was ever hired. He actually cut quite a fine figure all by himself. He had style and looked dashing, quite handsome in fact, without anyone's intervention. "The question begs itself."

"I have one now." Mr Pendragon gets particularly round-eyed and he moves so close to Merlin they are standing chest to chest. "And I'd be extremely grateful if he would grace me with his presence at this event."

Merlin tilts his head to the side. 

"You're having me on, aren't you?" Belatedly, Merlin thinks to add, "Sir."

Mr Pendragon turns away but there's no anger in his gaze, no tension to his deportment. On the contrary he seems to be having a hard time reining in a bout of laughter. He paces it off, completing a few turns of the room before he's completely sobered. "Just see to it that you have a trunk to take with you on Monday."

Mr Pendragon leaves his glass on one of the side tables and takes his cravat off. His shirt comes off next. Bare chested, he walks into the adjoining bathroom.

“Was that an order?”

“Yes, Merlin,” Mr Pendragon calls out. “That was an order.”

****

Though Merlin has worked at Arthur's for three months running, which should have have helped him get used to large households, he still gapes like a child presented with Wonderland when he approaches Morgana's house. As soon as they enter the drive leading out of it, Merlin leans out of the car and lets his mouth drop open. Arthur has to reel him in by the elbow so as not to have him fall out of the moving auto-mobile.

When they get out of the car, Merlin shoulders their baggage, two suitcases for Arthur, and his own back pack. In spite of his burden, Merlin doesn't pay much attention to their luggage, but rather tilts his head back and admires the bulk of the edifice before him. He drops Arthur's cases twice on the way over, but he picks them up and stashes them under arm.

Arthur meets Morgana on her doorstep, “Morgana.”

She kisses the air by his cheek. “Arthur. Glad to have you here.”

“As if I had a choice.” He really does want to help Morgana, but she has left him no choice as to the how. “You'd have skinned me alive if I hadn't.”

Morgana steps back and glares. “And that is...” She arches an eyebrow at Merlin.

“Merlin.” When Merlin makes it up the steps, Arthur puts his hand on his shoulder. “My butler.” Then he corrects his drift because he doesn't want Morgana to think he brought his own to replace hers. “Currently, he's my valet though.”

Morgana's eyes get big, but she soon gets it in stride. “I'm sure you can work out the ins and outs of his status between yourselves.”

“Where do I put these?” Merlin pants, lifting the luggage items he's carrying higher.

“I wouldn't know,” Morgana says, looking bewildered. “Why don't you ask my butler?”

“Inside, right.” Murmuring to himself, Merlin walks past them and gets into the house.

Morgana sends Arthur an amused look and they follow Merlin inside. While Morgana's own butler takes Merlin in hand, directing him into a passageway, Morgana steers Arthur in the morning room. “So,” she says, picking up a fan while she takes a seat on her red ottoman. “Are you ready to face father?”

As he flings himself down in an armchair, Arthur adjusts his trousers at the knee. “When is he coming?”

“On Sunday,” she says. “We have three days to devise a plan to deal with him.”

Arthur hopes he's not a bad son just because he doesn't look forward to seeing his father. “We need a plan?”

“Of course we do.” She clacks her tongue. “You know Uther.”

“If he sees Leon here,” Arthur says, “he won't be pleased.”

Morgana opens her fan, waves it about then snaps it shut. “You must make it clear it was you who invited him.”

“Even if I do--” Arthur heaves up his shoulders. “He'll guess.”

“Let him.” Morgana pulls at the golden loop at the bottom of her fan. “As long as you publicise your intent that won't matter. I just need to talk to Leon.”

That's the bit Arthur doesn't understand. Surely if she's so intimate with Leon that the man chose to go and propose to their father, then they must have some other way of communicating. But he doesn't think he should poke his nose into that. It's just as well, for the maid comes in next, pushing a food cart. Arthur has no intention of discussing family matters in front of staff.

Under Morgana's direction, the maid pours coffee, unveils a plate of sandwich, and cuts slices of a cake whose dough is orange with either cinnamon or carrots. Lifting them with the blade of a dessert spatula, she arranges them on round dainty dishes ornamented with roses that chase each other aroun the rim. At Morgana's bidding, she hands them over and then leaves the room, her cart clattering behind her.

As Arthur sinks his fork into the cake, Morgana says, “So, your butler.”

“Ah, yes, Merlin.” Arthur shoves the fork into his mouth.

“He's as bad a butler as you said he'd be.”

Arthur doesn't complain for nothing. “He tries his best.”

“I can see that.” Morgana toys with her food. “Still, you can't parade him around in polite society.”

Morgana is very good at chasing away Arthur's hunger, at making him positively fussy with annoyance. “Perhaps not yet,” Arthur says. “But I will in time.”

“That doesn't sound very wise.” Morgana cuts a piece of her dessert and nibbles at the piece speared on the end of her tiny silver fork. “You should have a good butler.”

“I have a perfectly serviceable one.” Merlin may not be perfect, Arthur knows, but he always turns up on time, serves lunch and dinner with precision, and gives all his chores a good and honest try. “It's just that he's not good at very public occasions yet.”

“And that's what a butler's for.”

“I don't intend to lead a very public life.” When he was very young, Arthur did. He attended every ball and party. He went to gentlemen's clubs and never dined or lunched alone. But the more the truth of New York society dawned on him, the more he realised he only needed a handful of people. Those aren't the companions his father would necessarily approve of, but Arthur's been more at ease with himself ever since he stopped listening to him. “So Merlin's fine.”

“But can't you find Merlin a job he's better at,” Morgana says. “He could go back to building.”

“Not after what nearly happened to him.” In Arthur's experience, building sites are just dangerous. Father's may be employing fewer security measures than most, but even the best builders ignore workers' safety. “I won't be part of that.”

“All right.” Morgana turns her gaze heavenwards. “You can't do that and I understand why. It actually does you credit. I half believed you had little heart, but that's clearly not the case.” Though Arthur looks daggers at her, Morgana forges ahead. “But the young man is a bad butler. Now he may be hopeless at serving but it doesn't mean there's not something he's good at.”

Arthur remembers what Merlin has told him over the course of their acquaintance. Merlin's never been in construction work but he was a farmer first and then a student. He tells as much to Morgana.

“What sort of studies did he pursue?” Morgana cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing with interest.

“I don't know exactly.” Arthur makes a mental note to enquire. “But his title may not necessarily be valid here.”

“Oh, I hadn't thought of that.” Morgana looks downwards. When she has a fresh idea, her gaze snaps upwards again. “Surely, however, you can use your influence to find him something he can do.”

“Maybe.” Arthur can't see that happening right now. In the future that could come to pass. But it's not a thought he wants to contemplate now. “We'll see.” He puts away his plate. “But enough of poor Merlin, what about you? What have you got planned for us over this long weekend?”

 

****

Whistling, Merlin exits the servants stairs and starts along a brightly lit carpeted corridor. Each door is wide and lacquered white with rectangular panels ornamenting both top and bottom. All of them look exactly alike. Earlier, one of the maids had told him where the room assigned to Mr Pendragon was. But Merlin isn't sure he now remembers which one it was. It's must be on this floor, the third, but he can't tell whether it lies in the east facing wing or the west facing one. They're mirrors of each other. Merlin's counting doors, not that that's going to help him orientate himself, when he runs into another servant..She's wearing a plain black skit but a frilly white shirt and golden brooch that indicate she must be at the top of the service ladder. 

“Are you lost, young man?”

“I'm afraid that I am, ma'am.”

“I'm Finna,” she says, “and if you tell me where you're going I can show you the way.”

“Mr Pendragon's room.” Merlin's smile unfetters with all the lightness of gratefulness.

She takes him by the elbow and turns him around. “It's that way, past the stairwell, the fourth door on the right.

“Thank you.” Draping the clothesbag he's carrying over his other shoulder, he shakes Finna's hand.

“God bless you,” the woman says, as Merlin tramps in the direction indicated.

In Mr Pendragon's room Merlin hangs the clothes bag to the wardrobe's front door, turns down the bed, and stokes the fire. When the room looks ready for nightly occupation, Merlin sits on a stool and stretches his feet out. Having been on them since the morning, the pause is welcome. Merlin's muscles relax with relief and his frame loses some of its tension. 

When the pain in his lower back lifts, Merlin stands and moves over to the bed frame, turning the light switch on. The bright glow of electricity encompasses the room, brightening it from corner to corner in a way that bests the fire. Though he knows how it works and has had time to adjust, he still finds a measure of wonder in it. Not so much in the cleverness of the invention – even if that should be appreciated – as in the nature of the changes it brings about. With so little you get brightness, a cheery space. No matter how ugly the weather turns outside, or how dark the night, you can feel cosy. That's science for you. Well, science and money.

Just because he can, Merlin flips the light on and off.

“Is that what you do when I leave you two minutes to yourself?”

Merlin somersaults, whirls around. “Good lord, you gave me a fright.” As Merlin's heart does stop thumping, he adds, “Weren't you supposed to be dining downstairs?”

“I was.” Mr Pendragon closes the door behind him, saunters in with his hands in his pockets, then flings himself down in the armchair by the fireplace. “Dinner ended.”

“I thought those things were supposed to last for hours.” Merlin may be no expert when it comes to the habits of New York high society, but he does know they waste a lot of time enjoying the fine things in life. Where a farmer would be done supping in ten minutes, a rich man would sit down to a six course meal lasting much, much longer. “I thought you'd have to have, wine and cigars, and let the ladies do their thing.” Or was it the other way around. “I was certain you'd only come up after midnight.”

“Well, I'm here,” Mr Pendragon says, loosening the laces of his patent leather shoes. “It had grown boring downstairs.”

With all that people to talk to Merlin can't imagine how one could fail to be entertained. “Really?”

“Yes, really, Merlin.” Mr Pendragon sinks back in the chair, one of his shoes half off. “The conversation touched no other topic than investments, the wine was sub par, and my sister kept making cow eyes at Leon Vanderriden.”

“Isn't that your friend?” Merlin certainly remembers the gentleman in question visiting Mr Pendragon to talk business, the kind of business that's so private it's practically a secret. “Shouldn't you be happy they have romanticl leanings towards each other?”

Mr Pendragon's mouth thins.

“I mean you'd have a friend for a brother in law.”

Mr Pendragon drums his fingers on the armrest. “I have nothing against that. The problem is I'm being dragged into machinations at a time when I can't allow myself one single mistake.”

Merlin guesses there's more to this story than meets the eye. More than he knows about anyway. “And yet you're here,” he says. “Letting yourself be dragged into it.”

“As you can see.”

Merlin smiles. “You must love your sister very much.”

Mr Pendragon takes off his other shoe. “Yet Morgana stays insufferable. She thinks she's some kind of princess in an ice palace.” He shakes his head, though a small smile teases at his lips. “And her conversation isn't half as clever as she believes it is.”

Merlin finds Mr Pendragon's antics concerning his sister more than a little endearing. “And yet you're at her side.”

“Oh yes,” Mr Pendragon says. “I was. And got stuck into the most intolerable dinner of my life.”

Snorting, Merlin looks away. It must certainly be hyperbole. The food alone must have been quite lovely for starters. “It can't have been uniformly bad.”

“You're right.” Mr Pendragon's voice evens. “The singer was quite good.”

“The singer?” Merlin feels as though Mr Pendragon's having quite a different conversation from the one they were having before.

“Morgana had an opera singer over,” Mr Pendragon says. “Her name is Gwen Smith and she sang after dinner.”

“Oh.” Now that makes more sense. “It must have been lovely.”

“It was.”

“I mean I have never listened to Opera before.” There was a professor in Dublin who played records on his gramophone and Merlin overheard snatches. It wasn't really enough to get a fair idea of the range of it, but he has an inkling it must be a fine genre. “But I think you must have had a grand evening of it.”

“I did.” Mr Pendragon studies Merlin. “You know what, there's no reason you shouldn't too.”

Merlin's brow goes heavy with lines. “What?”

“Come on.” Mr Pendragon stand and puts his shoes back on again. “We're going downstairs.”

Miss Smith is a small woman with soft eyes, a mouth tilted in a smile, and vigorous curls pinned up to her head with a jewel pin that shines in the light. When she notices them, she sets down the glass she's drinking from and stands. “Mr Pendragon, back down again?”

“Yes,” Mr Pendragon says. “I told Merlin here what a good performer you are and I was hoping you could introduce him to a small sampling of your singing. If you're not too tired, of course.”

Merlin can now see why Mister Pendragon dragged him downstairs. He can't say it isn't touching because it is. Merlin can't stop his glance from softening when it encompasses his master. But he hopes that Mr Pendragon, even while trying for a good deed, isn't putting to much strain on Miss Smith. 

“Don't feel like you have to, miss. If you're too tired, I would completely understand.”

“But you'd like listening to an aria?” Miss Smith says, moving to stand next to a grand piano. “Because if you do, then I'd be happy to fulfil your wishes.”

Merlin must admit that the prospect stirs something in him, a pleasant feeling like a flower in bloom. “Would you?”

“Most definitely,” Miss Smith says. “I love my art.”

Miss Smith's voice is soft and pure, her warbles rich. The song itself is both energetic and sad, the words threading one into the other in an aria that soars in places and pierces the heart in others. Being Irish, Merlin doesn't understand the words, but he thinks he gets the emotions behind them, the power, the exaltation, the joy, the fear, the sadness. They all knot inside him and somehow his eyes get wet.

He's still knuckling them dry when she finishes.

“That was fantastic.” Merlin claps loudly. He seeks out Mr Pendragon's glance because it's thanks to him that he's been able to witness Miss Smith's talents. Mr Pendragon smiles and Merlin responds in kind, before switching his attention back to Miss Smith. “You were phenomenal and your voice... Your voice is so perfect.”

“It's all in the song.” Miss Smith ducks her head. “It's one that's very close to my heart. It's called Sempre Libera and it's from Verdi's La Traviata.”

“It was lovely.” Merlin isn't trying to flatter her. Her voice, even if unaccompanied, is beautiful, and the melody was pitch perfect. They tore at Merlin's heartstrings. “You've turned me into a lover of opera.”

“Have I?” She laughs. “Well, then I suppose I ought to invite you to one of my concerts.”

Merlin blushes. “I wasn't trying to impose, ma'am.”

“You're not.” She takes his hands and squeezes his palms and it's warm and comforting. “I'm singing at the Carnegy next month. Do come see me.”

Merlin doesn't think he can afford a ticket, not with all the money he's been sending to Ireland. “That's very kind of you, but I think I'll be working.” That's not a lie either. Evening shows run parallel to dinner time. And Merlin's the one serving Mr Pendragon his. “Still, I'm very, very--”

“Nonsesnse.” Mr Pendragon gestures brusquely. “We will both go.”

Merlin still doesn't know how he'll pay but he can't mention that and he can't backtrack from his support of Miss Smith. Besides, a part of him, the one that doesn't heed practicalities, really wants to go. “I well...”

“I'll be very pleased to have you,” Miss Smith says. “Your support means a lot to me.”

Given that, Merlin can only say that he can't wait for the day.

 

**** 

The servants quarters are on the top floor. They're dark and narrow with walls bare of decoration and floor tiles grooved with use. They're wood, not marble, and no carpets cover them. The windows are smaller here, garret like, and usher in much less light than those situated on lower floors. Cluttered rows of little rooms open up from the passageway. Some of the doors are open, revealing empty bedrooms, while others are closed. Arthur opens the one closest to the utility closet.

Merlin's bed is small, a single with a high metal foot rail. It's pushed up against the wall but still manages to occupy most of the space in the room. Merlin himself lies on his stomach, face buried in the pillow, one hand under it. As he breathes, his torso lifts a fraction, and so do the covers heaped upon him.

There's something oddly moving about the array of room and man. The room is of modest proportions, its decor minimal. It seems barely fit to house a grown up. Arthur will have to talk to Morgana about that. Merlin himself seems to be doing the best he can with what he's got. One of his feet sticks out from under the cover and protrudes over the bed frame. The other is so close to the edge of the mattress it's almost poking out too. There's something a little heartbreaking about that, about the limitations poverty imposes on good people. Eager to work people. It's a thought Arthur will need to ponder about, consider from different angles.

In the meanwhile he says, “Up, Merlin.”

Merlin smacks his lips together, but doesn't otherwise stir.

“Merlin.” This time Arthur's louder.

Merlin snaps into a sitting position. Bleary-eyed he looks around and says, “Where, what, what's going on?”

“You should dress, Merlin,” Arthur says, smiling at the state of him, at the way his hair stands up in tufts and at the way he slurs his words, his brogue thick on his tongue. “Come on, up.”

“But, but,” Merlin says, eyeing the pocket watch lying on the nightstand, “it's six in the morning. You never get up before eight.”

“We have an emergency.”

Merlin looks around with a rather wild air. “What's happened? What's going on? Is there a fire?”

“No, Merlin.” Arthur places his hands on his hips. “There's no fire but there might as well be.”

Merlin wrinkles his nose at him. “Pardon?”

“My sister wants us to go pick wild berries,” Arthur says. “A morning long expedition. We're to wear straw hats and carry walking sticks and act, and I'm quoting ‘à la bergere’.”

“And that's the emergency?” Merlin's eyebrows climb simultaneously.

“Yes, it is,” Arthur says, “It's my idea of a nightmare day.”

“It's hardly mine.”

Merlin doesn't see things clearly, obviously. Arthur isn't loath to explain. 

“Pretending to be very in touch with nature when you're anything but. Idling all day long doing something silly. Spending time gossiping and talking nonsense. It is my idea of an activity to be avoided.” Merlin would want to too if he'd ever been involved in one of Morgana's schemes. “We're going fishing instead.”

“Because we're going to dine off the fish, you catch.”

Arthur goes over what Merlin's just said, then laughs. Merlin continues looking confusedly at him. Arthur sits at the edge of his bed and says, “Maybe not, but we're still avoiding my sister.”

They head out for the stream that runs across the south side of Morgana's property. It's artificial in so far as landscapers deviated its course. Its waters, however, bubble clear and sprightly as any natural brook's and fish swim under its surface. With the sun shining patchlessly overhead, a constant yellow burr of it, sitting on its bank is rather pleasant.

Arthur casts his line. As the hook sinks, water ripples in concentric circles. Once, the weight of the bobbers settles into the water, Arthur sits down and lets his back muscles relax. The sun plays on his skin and warms it to the bone. Tilting his head into it, Arthur slits his eyes. “This now, this is much more enjoyable.”

Positioning his pole behind his shoulder, Merlin thrusts it forward with a powerful cast; the hooked bait flies out over the rippling water. Satisfied with the cast, he sets his reel. “It's not bad,” Merlin admits, a smile edging on his lips. “Not bad all.”

“So you can fish...” That does seem rather obvious, but Arthur can be forgiven for being surprised. “I thought....”

“That I couldn't?” Merlin's voice is laced with laughter.

“I thought you started out as a farmer...” Arthur has so far pictured a young Merlin at work on a green farm, a small stone homestead in the background. “I had no way of knowing you were a fisherman too.”

“Galway is by the sea,” Merlin says, spooling the line back. “As a kid I often went to the pier and just fished.” In response to the sunlight, Merlin narrows his eyes. “And then there were brooks back in my home county too.”

“I suppose there were.” Yes, of course there must have been. “Is it very beautiful?”

“It's a hard country but beautiful as well, yes.” Merlin lowers his rod a notch. “I'll take you there one day.” Merlin's gaze refocuses, though not on Arthur, rather on the stream. “I'll show you round.”

Arthur has no words to say how much he wants to. He doesn't even need to think about the hazy future in which this is possible. He just envisions the country, with its natural beauties, and the companionship Merlin offers and it all seems so golden, so nice. But admitting as much seems like a betrayal of his duties here; and it's too much of an imposition for Merlin, requiring him to accept a shift in the nature of their relationship they're probably not ready for, not unless things change. In spite of the pang that suffuses his chest, he makes himself say, “Your line is tugging.”

“Is it?” Merlin takes his eyes off Arthur and directs his gaze to his jerking line. “It is.” He beams. “I've caught something. Arthur, I've caught something!”

Arthur doesn't remind Merlin of his faux pas in addressing him, doesn't want to point it out. He quite enjoys the slip because it came about so naturally. It warms his heart yet Merlin's not aware of it. It looks as good a compromise as they can have for now. He hopes they can forge a more conscious path ahead in the future, but now's not that time.

“Well, do something about it then, master fisherman.”

“I'll show you,” Merlin says, standing. He takes a few steps backwards, then reels the line in. “I've got it. I've got it.”

That fish, a small but combative pike, is not the only one Merlin catches that morning. From sun up to lunch time he gets five in his pail. They're all of them medium-sized but they're fat enough to actually feed people. 

“We're going to have these in the servant quarter,” Merlin says, chest sticking out with pride. “They're going to taste great with just a couple of herbs.”

“Expert chef too?” Arthur says, as seriously as he can though a smile runs away from him.

“No.” Merlin pouts. “But my ma cooks like the best of them. Even with little she could make meals taste heavenly.”

“Could she?”

“Yes,” Merlin says, nodding broadly. His torso pokes out some more. “Scant means and all. What it takes is just love.”

Arthur understands how that is important. He wants Merlin to discuss the concept, expand on it, so he pokes at him. “Love?”

Merlin pins his gaze on Arthur, lets out a breath. “Everything runs on it.” He pauses, looks off centre. “Even pike roasting.”

When the sun gets too hot, they bag their fish, and retreat into the shadows. They don't go back to the house, but rather sprawl in a round clearing around which pines hulk. The grass is soft and wet with dew. Lying in it is such a pleasure that they both take off their shoes and plaster their feet to the malleable earth. They strip off their shirts and soak in the warmth of the air, the freshness of the grass. 

They talk, Merlin about nature, how its embrace reminds him of home. Arthur tells him that if there's one advantage to his family riches it's the ability it affords them to enjoy nooks like this one. He ought to be ashamed of it perhaps, since it's clearly a prerogative of wealth, but he can't manage to fully be.

As the temperature cools, they put their clothes back on. They stay barefoot though and traipse towards the house just as they are, with twigs in the hair and dirt on their skin. People might stare and gawp, but Arthur can't think the day ill spent.

 

*****

Merlin opens the door and finds Arthur in the antechamber to the lower salon. He's sitting by the table with his head in his hands, his spine bent as if under the weight of some untold burden. There's something about the pose, about the utter defencelessness of it, that tears at him, breaks his heart. 

Given his position, he probably shouldn't speak. He's a subordinate. But he's not letting himself be stopped by that. If he baulks at expressing his feelings, then he's made himself a servant in more explicit ways than the job title implies. 

He puts a hand on Arthur's shoulder and says, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Can you erase the past few hours?” Arthur asks, looking up over his shoulder to meet Merlin's gaze.

“I'm afraid not.” Merlin licks his lips. “Did anything happen?”

“Plenty did.” Arthur sighs. “Where do you want me to begin?”

“I don't know,” Merlin says, taking a chair and sitting across from Arthur, “maybe at the beginning?”

“Morgana and Leon have come to an understanding of some sort.” Arthur studies the palms of his hands. Since he's no worker, no farmer, they bear no calluses but for the hardened spots at the base of his fingers, which come from wielding his walking stick. “They meet furtively, they exchange messages, as of late they've started smiling cryptically at each other.

Merlin understands how that works. “It's not that bad is it? They're probably in love.”

“I fear they want to elope.”

“If that's what they want to do--” Merlin feels one should always follow one's own heart, the dictates of it. “Shouldn't you be happy for them?”

“I'm not unhappy about them.” Arthur shakes his head. “But they've put me in an untenable position.”

“How?” Merlin isn't sure he has an intimate knowledge of the workings of this society. He's even less acquainted with Arthur's family.

“My father doesn't want her to marry Leon.”

Merlin can't fathom why. “Is he not a good man?” Though Merlin's only seen the man twice and has therefore little ground to judge, he has a good impression of him. “Is he not suitable?”

“Leon is an excellent man,” Arthur says. “That's not the problem. Leon's only fault is not being rich enough.”

In Merlin's eyes Leon had looked rich enough. His clothes were of good quality, thick woollens and cottons, sturdy tweeds and silks. The chain of his pocket watch was thick and all gold while the pommel of his cane was inlaid silver. On that alone a Galway family could live for months. “He must have enough to marry on.”

“Not in society.” Arthur makes a wry face. “And most assuredly not according to my father.”

“I see.” That's what it must be then, some strange rule pertaining to these people only. “But isn't your sister a widow?” Morgana doesn't bear Arthur's name and she lives here in this big house alone, which wouldn't be likely if she wasn't anything other than that. “Can't she choose for herself now?”

“She was married to Mordred Lothian.” Arthur's gaze becomes distant with memories. “Good lad. Hated Father.” His lips tilt in a twist. “As for your other question. In theory she can do whatever she wants. In practice, it's not quite like that.”

Merlin's starting to suss out the hints. “You mean to say she's not quite as free as she appears?”

“Father has ways to prevent her from acting as she wants.” Arthur's face darkens and his facial muscles tighten. “I'm one of his means.”

Merlin can't believe Arthur would wish to thwart his sister hopes. While he has no intimate insight into their relationship, Merlin knows not to trust his complaints about her, sees that they're grounded in ease and familiarity, like his own teasing of Will and Daegal. Above all, he's aware of Arthur's pure heart. If he's so kind with a man like Merlin, who's no immediate family and was, on the contrary, a stranger, Merlin doesn't believe Arthur capable of anything other than deep-seated affection for his sister. 

“I don't think you'd let yourself be manipulated by him.”

“You have a lot of faith in me.” Arthur startles into looking right into Merlin's eyes.

Merlin puts his hand on top of Arthur's. It doesn't burn but it does warm him to the very core. “I do.”

Arthur's expression lightens, his eyes round and his lips tilt. “Thank you, Merlin.” Right next, his face darkens again. “Unfortunately, you're the last one to think so.”

“It's just not possible.”

“Well, Morgana thinks I'm not doing enough to show my support of her, Leon didn't say it explicitly but he believes the same and my father...” He covers his face with his hands, shakes his head, lets out a breath, then lowers his palm. “My father let it on that he's onto me.”

“Onto you?” There's something Arthur's not told him here, Merlin wagers.

“He knows I'm not the one who wanted this party,” Arthur says, eyes awash with sadness. “He knows it was all a pretence so Morgana could see Leon. He's guessed I was just helping her out. And he's disappointed, Merlin. He said I let him down.”

Merlin can't see how a family member can be so harsh with another, so hard and unfeeling. “Doesn't he think he's let his own daughter down by not letting her chase after her own happiness?” Merlin barely even knows Arthur's sister. To him she's only the beautiful and glamorous lady who welcomed them to this house at the beginning of this long weekend. But even he can only wish for her happiness in marriage, especially given she's a young window, and has already suffered much. He can't even begin to process how her father could want anything other than for her to follow her own heart. For Merlin knows how important that is and he doesn't fathom how a man of Mr Pendragon's age hasn't come to learn of it. “Can't he see that he's hurting you too?”

“He probably thinks it's for the best.” Arthur's shoulders become a hard line. “He believes he's right.”

“He isn't.” There's not half a doubt about that. Perhaps the old man really loves Arthur and Morgana, but he doesn't do anything to show that love in a nurturing way. If Merlin's mother had been in Uther Pendragon's shoes, she'd have given her blessing to any of her son's choices. Though they've never talked about it in explicit terms, she was always happy to let him follow his heart. It's taken him so far. “She deserves her happiness just as much as you merit no censure for what you've done.”

“You're pretty confident of that.” Arthur tilts his head and looks at Merlin with hope in his gaze.

“Yes, I am.” Though he drops his own hand so it's no longer touching Arthur's, Merlin sticks his chest out. “I'm sure you've only tried your best. You've been a good brother, and, as far as I know, a good son. Your father shouldn't punish you for wrongs you haven't committed.”

“What about those I'm about to?” Arthur's eyebrow curves upwards.

“Oh.” Merlin remembers Arthur's plans for his future and that of the company, how they involve ousting Uther Pendragon. “That's different.”

“How?” Arthur's bobs his head sideways in a sign of denial.

“You're doing it to protect the workers.” Arthur's told him as much and Merlin believes him. “For a better future for them.”

“But if my father's reacting badly to this Morgana business,” Arthur says, “how will he see my behaviour?”

“I can't tell you that.” Merlin can't see into the future and doesn't know what Uther Pendragon would do if brought to breaking point. “But I can tell you how I got hired.”

“I thought Gwaine found you the job?” Lines dig themselves on Arthur's brow.

“He did.” Merlin's mentioned that repeatedly. “But the foreman wouldn't hire me unless I passed a test.”

Arthur's confusion grows. It etches itself on his face wrinkle by wrinkle and clench by clench. “What sort of test?”

“I had to show I had a good head for heights.” Merlin happens to. When he was in Ireland, he climbed up to the tallest cliffs, the most wind-beaten headlands, and stared off to sea, brine on his skin and on his tongue, salt on the air. They were the best moments, the most wonderful of Merlin's life. He'd never have guessed they would turn useful. “So the foreman asked me to climb up to the exposed girders. The ones on top. He said if I walked the line and didn't fall off to my death, then I would be hired.”

“Without ropes?” Arthur's eyes are so wide and dark Merlin thinks he can make out the littlest flecks in them. “Without any safeguard?”

“You know how it was at the site.” Merlin can see Arthur's clenching his teeth. “That's why what you're doing is so important. That's why you must keep on doing what you're doing.”

“I know it matters.” Arthur nods to himself and gathers his hands into fists. “And yet my father...”

“Your fighting him on that doesn't mean that you don't love him.” Merlin thinks that's the problem. In spite of the way Arthur was raised – to be just like his father – he has a sense of justice. That stops him from toeing the line when it comes to Uther Pendragon. At the same time, it makes him feel bad when he does stand up to him. Like that moral torture is inescapable. “Don't let him convince you of that. Do what you think is right. Do what allows you to walk around in pride.”

Arthur's eyes stay big, all colour and brightness. They soften more and more and, as Merlin did before, he touches his hand. He soon drops it but for the second the touch lingers it's true and honest, hot and firm, a measure of warmth passing from one of them to the other. “Thank you, Merlin.” Arthur's Adam's Apple bobs, a swift but visible movement. “I don't know why you're so wise, but you are, and your words mean a lot to me.”

Merlin doesn't know how to tell Arthur that his own words are very special, that they put a stitch under Merlin's ribs, drawing a deep gash in his heart that soon fills with warm feelings. Coming over, Merlin had hope. The first few weeks in New York ground that to cinders for him, but Arthur has restored a lot of it, a lot of Merlin's faith in humanity. They might be employer and employee, but that doesn't matter to Merlin. He's aware of the shift in himself, of the change, and he doesn't wish it undone. Merlin's feelings rise in his chest, in his gullet, in his guts. However unwise, he can't un-weave the tapestry of his emotions, can't stop it from rushing towards Arthur. Though he means to say much more, and to convey the length and breadth of his devotion to Arthur, he only tells him, “You're welcome.”

As he leaves the room, he squeezes Arthur's shoulder.

 

***** 

The lobby is all marble. The floor is of a darker cream hue with black and mauve striations that furrow it across. The columns are paler, milky lengths towered by a capital wrought with flowers and fruits. Vines and leaves – broad and of Mediterranean style – surround them, space them out, hem them in. Toppers cap them, plaster ridges sticking out in sharp lines. All around the foyer balconies open. There's one on the first floor above and one of the second. Balustrades fence them in; their rails are of a polished wood the colour of a dark wine; the horizontal volutes are fat in the middle and taper at the top.

Both in the lobby and along the balconies people mill. Their voices buzz loud, words said in a burr, mottos tinkling on lips, greetings exchanged on trilling notes that travel across the breadth of the roomful, from entrance to the innermost sections of the vestibule. Laughter chases them like chimes in the shape of polite chuckles or gusto full peals.

Lengths of it looking like water coursing down bubbling brooks, silk rustles and catches the light. Diamonds shine. They rest on women's bosoms; they dangle from their ears. Men have them on rings, or they stud their cigar cases, broad rectangular objects that dwarf the hands that wield them.

“I feel terribly out of place here,” Merlin says, patting his evening jacket. It's one Arthur had had made for him. Though the seamstress who sewed it together never even saw Merlin, she made it to fit. It's true that Arthur stole Merlin's spare uniform, so he could surprise him with the new garment, but she did an exceedingly good job on the basis of that. “Like I don't belong.”

“Nonsense,” Arthur tells him, mostly because it is. In his new outfit, Merlin looks extremely handsome. The cut of his jacket underlines the width of his shoulder. It stresses the slimness of his hips and all the clean lines of his torso. His trousers show off long legs that are slim yet powerful. “You fit the part.”

“You mean people won't think I'm your butler.”

“I mean, thanks to Sefa the magical seamstress, you look quite elegant,” Arthur says, not wanting Merlin to be barred from enjoying the evening only because he wasn't born in the right family. “And there's no reason why you shouldn’t be able to listen Gwen singing.”

“There's nothing wrong in that, I realise.” Merlin gets a smile on his face that's quite fond. “Still people will make it a point to make me feel awkward.”

“Gwen won't.” Arthur makes a stern face. “She wanted you here. I'm sure that most of the people here can't claim as much.”

“No, you're right.” Merlin's posture relaxes. “I'm sorry.”

“What for?” Merlin has committed no faux pas. On the contrary of late Merlin's been completely invaluable. Over the months he's learnt the job and now he makes no mistakes at it. More, Merlin has been more than a mere butler. His counsel is always wise. His support is unconditional. Without Merlin, Arthur wouldn't have known how to continue on his course regarding Father; and he wouldn't have had a clue how to go on pretending he doesn't know about Leon and Morgana's elopement plan. “You have no reason to be sorry.”

“You gave me this great opportunity,” Merlin says, gesturing at the bulk of the lobby. “You paid for the tickets and came with me instead of with your friends when you had to know that your peers wouldn't approve of my company. You were kind and I wasn't. I should have made more of an effort to appreciate the wonderful opportunity.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Merlin.” Arthur feels Merlin's praise keenly. It robs him of his breath and pierces his heart. It makes him want to say equally lovely things in return; it causes him to want to declare his feelings for Merlin, the brightness of them, the power of them. But of course he can't vocalise them. He'd look and sound mad. He would compromise their relationship, lose Merlin, and that's not something he wants. “Just enjoy your night.”

As the others enter the main auditorium, Arthur and Merlin file behind. Merlin looks around all the time. His eyes shine with awe and he smiles at everything he sees, every fixture, every flower arrangement, every person who so much as grins at him. When they get to their seats, Merlin settles and resettles. When Arthur asks him whether that's because he finds them uncomfortable, Merlin says, “No, it's actually because they're too comfortable. I'm not used to such softness.”

There are so many things Arthur wants to say to that: that he wishes Merlin could always have the best, that it's unjust some people can't enjoy amusements Arthur has always taken for granted, that ever since he met Merlin he's come to see things differently. He's become of aware of issues of class that only barely touched him before; he's come to acknowledge all the injustice of them. But he can't speak because the lights in the auditorium dim and the buzz of voices dies down, signalling the start of the performance.

Since this is not an opera, the stage is not dressed. There are no set designs, no grand proscenium paintings. Flowers deck the area before the curtain. Roses bunch red and pink at the centre of it. In the wings the blooms decorating the bottom part of the platform are white and purple. A grand piano stands right before the proscenium. It's sleek and black, its lid up, a ledger holding up sheaves and sheaves of music. In the box sits the orchestra. Its members wear evening gear, bright starched shirts, silken cravats as light as clouds, and bow ties sitting as straight as the line of a ruler.

When the applause starts, Gwen comes out. She's wearing a red evening dress with pink flowers above the hem. They're so small it's only thanks to their excellent seats that they're visible. Her hair piles on top of her head in glossy curls among which shiny pearls are scattered.

When she begins to sing the lights switch onto her, pooling around her in showers while everything else lies in darkness. Her voice starts soft, sweet, lulling the ear in with the peace of its timbre. But then it gathers power, it goes alto, it stabs and wounds, and yet the marvel of its beauty doesn't cease to flow outwards from her chest. She's a great singer, a pure talent, with a vein of originality that presents itself in her bypassing schooling and going right for the feelings.

As he listens, Arthur realises just how much of a good idea coming here was. Morgana, voluble as she is in her likes, has really unearthed a virtuoso.

As he turns to communicate this thought to Merlin, he takes in the latter's expression. And Arthur's stabbed right in the heart by it. There's such joy in Merlin's face, such rapt attention, Arthur can only wonder at the effect the music's having on him. Though it's dark, Arthur can make out the tears in Merlin's eyes, and sense the grip he gives the armrests. As the aria waxes, he sits straighter, and when it grows intimate, Merlin sighs, his breath rolling out of him in a swift gasp.

When the song's over, all opera goers stand and clap. Merlin's one of the first to get to his feet and one of the last to sit down. Later, after the concert's finished, they see Gwen in her dressing room. It's small and lacks sofas and mirrors, but it does have a rack filled with dresses, costume changes all of them. They have flowers for her, lilies, which Merlin has chosen himself.

“Thank you,” Gwen says. “You don't know how much this gladdens me.”

Merlin smiles at her, takes her hands in his, tells her he's the one who was made happy by her music. “I didn't know,” he tells her. “I didn't know music could be so beautiful.” He palms his heart. “That it could touch you inside just so.”

Later, Merlin asks Arthur not to take a car back. He wants to stroll, he says. As he expresses that wish, he looks up at the sky, nose up in the air, lines etching themselves around his eyes. “Look at those stars,” he says. “It's been awhile since I last paid attention to them.”

“Why are you doing so now?” Arthur shouldn't probe or pry but the truth is he wants to know everything about Merlin.

“Because tonight was magnificent.” Merlin bumps shoulders with him. “Because it made me love New York.”

“If I'd known it would take so little,” Arthur says, going for a levity he doesn't quite feel, not when Merlin's so close and so happy, “I'd have tried something like this sooner.”

“You were under no obligation.”

Arthur owes Merlin the truth. “I was in a way.”

“Arthur, no.” Merlin takes his hand. It's a quick touch, for he soon drops it. But it's not a simple one. It's full of intent and warmth. “You've given me so much. You've more than made up for... whatever you think you owe me.” He takes a big laborious breath. “You've repaid me in spades for that misadventure on the job.” He shakes his head. “Sometimes I actually think you've given me far too much.”

“You don't get it, do you?” Then again why would Merlin? Arthur can scarcely comprehend it himself. “That has nothing to do with what happened at your former job.” When Merlin flares his eyes at him, Arthur almost loses the will to carry on, explain himself. But he must in all honour make a clean breast of it all. “I feel I owe you because I admire you as a person. In view of my admiration--” For Merlin's efforts in trying to build a new life here, his steadiness in the face of ill fortune, for the support and near friendship he's offered “I feel I can do nothing but do something to make you happy.”

“Arthur, I--”

“No, let me speak.” Arthur holds up a palm, looks at the pavement rather than at Merlin's expressive face. “I understand I may have passed a line, and I would accept it if you thought my words distasteful. I'm after all your employer, and you may think I'm using my hold over you to...” Arthur has no idea how to put this into words. He only feels he needs to reassure Merlin. There's an urgency in his need to do that that almost causes him to burst at the seams. “To force you into anything you wouldn't desire, but I want you to know that I desire for nothing more but your comfort and happiness.”

Merlin pushes him into a dark alley. It's so narrow the back of one building nearly nudges the side of another, the brickwork rough with cement spillage, posters of shows peeling off in curls and fragments. The gutter is narrow and murky puddles coat it. The place smells dank, unclean, but Arthur doesn't mind, because Merlin takes his hand, and his eyes, in spite of the absence of light, shine clear. 

“You've crossed no line--” Merlin gives his palm a warm and hefty squeeze. “At least none that I didn't want you to.”

“Then--” If Merlin doesn't resent him for pressing the matter, then perhaps they have hope.

“God knows I don't want to push the boundaries of my own position.” Merlin grimaces. “I've always believed in equality...” His eyes fill with the light of passion. “In the words of Paine and Robespierre and Marx too. But I don't want you to think I'm trying something.”

Arthur is trying to suss out what Marx has got to do with this wildly personal moment, with the ferocious beating of his heart, with the pangs in it. Try as he might, he can't quite. “What?”

“I've come to view you as a... friend,” Merlin's says, a smile breaking away from him at the choice of words. “I know you're my employer, but tonight, and before, and--”

Arthur feels light headed with emotion, with a coiling up of joy. He tells himself to be prudent, to beware the words – Merlin's are circumspect – but however much he wills himself to use cation, he finds he's not able to. 

“And?” He shouldn't urge Merlin for any clarification. He should treasure the moment and put all his hope in the future, yet the words come out and though he could will them back, he doesn't.

“And ever since we met,” Merlin says, “I've felt there's been something between us. At first I didn't know what it was. But now I feel extraordinarily courageous about it and I can't sit by and let it go. Even though I'm a servant, and the world tells me it's not my place to, I want to be more than a subordinate. I want to be a friend.” Merlin bobs his head as if he's giving himself leave to proceed. “I want that and, if you're not against it, I'd love to try.”

Arthur loses all breath, all coherence. On instinct he knows what to say, “I'm not.” Perhaps on second thought, that's not quite so clear. “I'm not against it, Merlin.” In fact, Arthur wants Merlin to be more than a servant. Even when Merlin was acting like one, Arthur wished for more. Those moments where they can just sit and talk have been the very best. Whenever Merlin has offered him counsel, or spoken of his home, Arthur's enjoyed it. It's that connection he seeks, that he needs more of. “In fact, I want to there to be no gaps between us, no barriers.” He's aware of how society works and at the moment he doesn't care for the rest of the world. “I would never have presumed if you hadn't talked, but since you have, that's the honest truth of it.”

Merlin smiles and his gaze grows fond. He takes Arthur's hand, palm to back, and leans in, all warmth and scent. It's a light herbal one, fresh like a spring summer, like a walk in the woods; it hangs around Merlin when he moves closer still and kisses Arthur. He kisses him in the soft light of the moon away from the glare of the street lamps, in a corner of the city that is, right in this moment, uniquely theirs.

Nibbling on Arthur's lips, Merlin rubs his own against the seam of Arthur's, touches his tongue to the tip of Arthur's. His face is hot with a heat that doesn't belong to the night. The kiss burns in Arthur's mouth. It's a breath-taking shock, a lightening of the bones and a contracting of the heart. Merlin kisses him slowly and deeply, touching his hand to Arthur's neck, Arthur's shoulder, kneading it. And when he takes a step back, he sweeps Arthur's hair off his forehead and twines their fingers, toying with them. “What do you say to that?”

Arthur doesn't know. He has no words for this reshaping of himself, for this quickening of his heart, this sudden gust of fire that plays inside him. He only knows that he hasn't felt like this in a long time, since he was very young, barely out of his teens, and he lay with other boys like him, boys of good family who'd come to visit at his father's, for a garden fête, a rowing match, or on the pretext of courting Morgana,

The afternoons were long, drenched in sunlight, the kisses sweet enough, the romps energetic, just what Arthur needed to weather another day, to put up with his father, to be able to continue to wear the mask of the perfect gentleman. And it's worked. It's worked in so far his interest in sex, in companionship, has always been passing, has always come second compared to his duties, his business as an entrepreneur, his future plans. But this is quite different, as joyful as it is unexpected, and Arthur doesn't want to give it up.

“I think,” Arthur says, “that we're in agreement.”

“How formal.” Merlin doesn't seem offended by that or at all taken aback. He smiles so wide his cheeks dimple as a result. “At home, we'd say, we're milis ar a chéile,” Merlin says.

“What does that mean?” Arthur wants to know. He has a feeling Merlin's words are meaningful, not throw away at all. Besides, this is a part of Merlin, of his culture, that lies close to his heart.

“You'll find out.”

Shoulder to shoulder they walk down Seventh Avenue. Arthur hails a cab and they ride it together, sitting side by side, arms touching, legs brushing with every jolt of the vehicle, with every turn of it.

With Drea gone for the day, Arthur's house, is silent, dark, quiet. Light filters in from the big windows on the first floor, but shadows hang about the corridors, the parlours, the stairs.

“Come to my room?” Arthur asks, breath hitching with expectation.

“Yes.” Though he knows the way just as well as Arthur does, Merlin follows him.

Once they're in Arthur's room, Merlin falls on him, kissing his neck, his face, his throat. Arthur feels like he's dissolving, like the core of him is coming apart, melting into oceans, into a thousand grains of sand. This is what Merlin does to him, how he changes him.  
Because of it, Arthur stops breathing, and his heart starts hurting. It comes to a pass when it's all too much, the understanding of this process, the awareness of it that seeps deep into his psyche, the tangling of them together. Arthur has no choice. He can either drown in it or let it all happen. He can take stock of everything, his feelings, Merlin's closeness, the different slot their relationship is entering into, or live the moment.

There's only one option.

Moving forwards, Merlin nudges his nose against Arthur’s, gripping his bicep, then wrapping both hands around his waist, until their hips bump together angle by angle, sharp rise by sharp rise, and Arthur stops thinking entirely, loses himself in the moment. He tangles his hand in Merlin's hair, he cups his nape. Their mouths move together, and while it's slow and soft, there's a passion to it that wasn't there when they were in the open, when they hid together in the alley. Whatever this different quantity is, burns through Arthur’s brain, his blood, and works itself deeper in him.

Merlin flicks his tongue in and out of Arthur's mouth in a dip that sears everything in his path, it touches Arthur’s bottom lip, and it draws Arthur's own into Merlin's mouth. It's good this, powerfully so. There's a sweetness and a warmth that reels Arthur in, that makes him lean in and touch, draw Merlin into his arms.

Merlin's hot, like a fire, like a beacon. Arthur works his way under Merlin's tuxedo jacket, tears at the cummerbund. His shirt is slightly rough under Arthur's hands, the fabric grainy, starchy in its newness. Arthur pulls at it and touches his skin with the broad side of his hands. At that Merlin makes a little sound in the back of his throat, one that makes the skin between the cords of his neck vibrate. His hand slips down from the tangle of Arthur's hair, cradling the back of his neck, holding him in place so they can kiss deeper.  
As their heads tilt to a new angle, Arthur falls a little bit further, gets enmeshed more and more. Because this is what he wants, what he's always wanted and never dared ask for before, he gives it his all. Is this passion indicative of other feelings? Is the lack of it in previous instances an indictment of his previous fleeting relationships?

Pressing his lips to the corner of Merlin's mouth, Arthur pulls away. “Will you share my bed?” Arthur asks, knowing full well that that that's one step forward Merlin may not be inclined to take. “I--” Telling Merlin how much he would like to lie with him, how much he wants indulge this feeling of being on the brink of a marvellous dissolution, is out of the question. There's a brittle side to him that wouldn't fare well if he were to admit that much and be rejected. So he swallows thickly, and tries to reformulate, looking for the words to tell Merlin he cares, infinitely so, while leaving him room to back track. “Would you do me do honour--”

Merlin chuckles. “I'm a farmer.” He touches his lips to Arthur jaw, then up his neck once, and finally to the shell of his ear. “You don't need to stand on ceremony with me.” Arthur's face falls; his insides flip as if is in a rowboat on an angry sea. Merlin pre-empts him. “That means I will.”

“Oh.” Arthur would love to be eloquent. But he's afraid he cares rather too much to be able to say the right words, to chance upon something clever.

Merlin smiles, brings his hand around, swipes his thumb over Arthur’s lips and kisses him softly, just once. For all its down to earth simplicity, the touch is incendiary

“Come on,” Merlin says in a whisper that suits the night-time quiet of Arthur's home.

The bed is bathed in moonlight. The covers are drawn up tight, white as snow, the pillows plump, forming a mound of two on each side. Merlin lays Arthur down. Even though Arthur objects, tells him he's not a servant now, Merlin takes off Arthur's shoes, Arthur's jacket and shirt. It's fun, he says. I want to, he promises. With easy, effortless gestures, he strips Arthur to his smalls. When Arthur strains for him, with his body, with his mouth, Merlin draws away.He undresses rapidly, with an economy of movement that tastes of early mornings on a farm, of a life lived with no fuss. Naked, Merlin is all longitudinal sweeps, and sharp joints. He's spare and wiry, with muscles to his arms, belly and calves. Worker muscles, with a distribution to them that's more haphazard than that of a sportsman, perhaps less graceful, but none the less appealing.

There's a strength, a wiriness to him that Arthur suspects undaunted. Arthur is lost in thought about the beauty of him, when Merlin moves across to him, cock bobbing at half-mast. He sits on the bed and places a hand on Arthur's face. At the kindness of the gesture, at its unabashed gentleness, something twists and shivers in Arthur's spine. Bending over him, Merlin brings their faces together, pulls his bottom lip into his own mouth.

Before he's done kissing back, Arthur grips Merlin by the shoulders, hooking him close. Merlin takes the kiss deeper, licks into his mouth, tangles them together in a knot. With a few tugs he pulls down Arthur's smalls. Arthur's cock bobs free, hard and red. Merlin sits on his lap, his balls brushing Arthur's cock. Like a youth Arthur leaks, bucks his hips, grabs Merlin by the elbows. Merlin moves on top of him, and they touch cocks, side by side, and tip against girth. They both start, hiss, miss on their next kiss.

As they moan and thrust their hips, Arthur nuzzles his face against Merlin’s shoulder, against the bulge of his Adam's apple, licking a line along the length of his throat. Beneath his tongue, Merlin's pulse thunder, roars. He grows hotter, feels harder. Arthur shivers, bracing his legs on the floor, nibbling, teasing at Merlin's skin with his teeth.

“I want us to be equal,” Arthur says, catching Merlin's mouth again for a new kiss, one that's deeper and more focused than the one before. It tastes like the getting of knowledge, the understanding of intimacy. It's like a key to the two of them, a sorting out of the puzzle of what they want, who they are.

Merlin drops more of his weight on Arthur, twists in his lap. He doesn't escalate it though and they kiss and pant, thread fingers through hair and cup necks. They make noise they hush on each other's lips, by way of kisses that bring their tongues together, in an unveiling of the rhythms of their passion, their inner workings.

From top to toe, Arthur shivers, feels unmoored, a little lost at sea, but nonetheless reckless with euphoria, taken by need. Merlin nudges at him with the gentleness of nuzzling, of easy kisses, and the push of hands that touch with affection, reverence. He splays his palm down Arhur's chest, fingertips bumping along the length of his ribs, kisses and sucks where the imprint of his hand was.

His thoughts spiralling, Arthur lies flat on the bed, taking the kisses that Merlin puts on his chest, shivering when his parted lips skim skin, when they snag on a nipple, when they trace muscle ridges.

Fluttering, Arthur's belly caves in, until his chest fills with a rush of air that makes him drunk on it, that scrambles his thoughts in all directions. “Please,” Arthur says, his voice clogged with desire, his throat closing with it. He's full of longing for Merlin, full of carefully secreted desire. The striving for him began early with Arthur, not as soon as they met perhaps, but quite soon once Merlin's spirit and determination to make his way became evident. And ever since Arthur has been cherishing this feeling, which now has come to a burn.

Merlin chases kisses around Arthur's nipples, along the length of Arthur's ribs, around his navel. With beads of it breaking on his forehead, up his spine, Arthur sweats, his body alert, tense, prickling in a way that lights up his nerve endings, that melts Arthur's core, his spine, till only heat emanates from it. Merlin cups his pubic bone; fingers ghosting over the skin of his stomach, his fingers curling in the hairs at his groin.

In anticipation Arthur shakes. Merlin kisses his cock with wet, open-mouthed kisses. He touches the tip of it with his lips and then puts it in his mouth. Licking and nibbling, smearing Arthur's pre-come on his tongue, Merlin cups him in his palm, then sinks lower on him, his mouth hot and wet, a heaven of sorts.

With his tongue flattened against his flesh, Merlin sucks and nuzzles, suckles and swallows. For Arthur it's all about not moving, trying not to buck, or thrust, or sigh, so he won't hurt him.

As the waves of pleasure dissolve him, Arthur finds it hard to keep himself in check, not to mesh his fingers in Merlin's hair and not to control his movements. Merlin uses his fingers on him and his mouth, humming around the tip of Arthur's cock, pulling on him with deep strokes of his mouth, undoing him with broad swipes of his hand.

Then eventually Arthur thrusts, his spine makes snapping sounds, his lower back twisting and twitching, his hips inching upwards and upwards until Merlin plunges his tongue inside Arthur's slit, searching it, probing the ridges of skin round it with his tongue. Arthur gives himself up. With a last great spasm, he comes, spurting in Merlin's mouth until Merlin coughs and turns his head away, leaving Arthur wet at the tip, panting hard, his vision a little blurry for the tears that have come into his eyes.

When Arthur's done, Merlin fingers his hair, kisses him softly, runs his lips against the side of his face, soothes him with a hand to his flank. When Arthur tells him where the oil is, Merlin's eyes widen, his nostrils flare. But he doesn't hesitate. Naked, he walks to the cabinet Arthur points him to. The door creaks when it opens.

“Second drawer,” Arthur says, his skin pebbling, but not with cold, rather with anticipation, with expectation. And though his need is banked with the pleasure he just had, he can't help but be broken by the notion of how much he wants this. “There are oils. Scented ones.”

Arthur stops himself from qualifying their nature, sure that Merlin will understand what they're for without his running his mouth off about them. When he's got a bottle, Merlin turns around. He cradles it to his chest, walking back towards the bed. There's ease and fluidity to his moves, unabashed. His muscles flex, his cock bounces between his legs, fat already, somewhat red. On the bed he opens the bottle and pours its contents on his fingers.

“I’m so fired up,” Merlin says, “so powered up. I want this so much.”

Leaning over, Arthur presses a wet kiss to Merlin's cheek. “You'll have it,” he says, wanting Merlin to get the whole of him, no holds barred. He's not sure he'll have the courage, but he wants it with a burn that starts at the fingertips “You should have it all.”

“You're good,” Merlin says, his pupils are blown so wide, hardly any of the blue left showing, but there's a softness to them that's not only want. It's pure unbridled devotion, understanding. “You're generous. In everything that you do.”

Arthur wants to say that he isn't, which is nothing but the truth. Life has bestowed him many advantages and he's now trying to give back, to equalise things in a way. But that's too convoluted a thought to come out with when Merlin's rubbing his lips over his jaw, or when he turns him round and enters him with his fingers. Arthur can't talk but he can experience it all. It's like a flaring of warmth, of bliss; it comes in bursts that travel up his spine, and through his heart, and shake him to the core.

They shift around on the bed until Merlin lies between Arthur's thighs. He wraps one hand around Arthur's hip, the palm hot, the touch gentle still.

“Come on,” Arthur says, his voice gone low now, with an edge to it that's like shards.

Merlin fumbles forwards, says, “Yes, I'm sorry.” and fumbled with the condom wrapper.

Arthur feels light, breathless, doesn't add anything else. Planting both feet on the bed he spreads his legs until his soles lie flat on the cool sheets.

“I can't tell you how much I want this,” Merlin says. “How moved I am.”

“Then go ahead.”

Merlin covers him with his body and places his lips on top of Arthur's. He braces on one hand; the other flutters down Arthur's flank, fingertips trailing paths of fire where they skate, and settles at his hip. At the touch Arthur makes a soft noise, releasing a hitched breath. In a blink, and in spite of Merlin's tremors, they are aligned.

When he feels it, Merlin's warmth as it blankets him, Arthur goes weak, in the heart and in the limbs. 

“Merlin,” Arthur says, with no other intent than saying the name.

Merlin kisses him, harder than he did before, with a wild intent that knows no rhyme or reason. Arthur moves with the kiss, taking Merlin's lips between his own. Their hands glide down arms and sides, into hair, around the napes of necks.

Their tongues tangle so inextricably it seems their kisses are meant to never end, to string them together in tightly wound parts of a whole. Each touch pulls a shudder out of Arthur, puts an ache in his bones. When they slot together, something that was smouldering flares inside him. His need for touch, for closeness, increases. Arthur pants against Merlin's mouth, breathes against his neck, scrapes his nails at the base of Merlin's. All the while feels himself go soft at the core, light in the soul.

Merlin leans forward and balances himself on both hands, his breath on Arthur's mouth. Finding his angle, he rolls back, then pushes forward again. This new nudge of is breath-stealing, forceful, beautiful in its rawness, the thickness and energy of Merlin a vital charge inside him. Hands scrabbling for purchase on sweaty bodies, they groan together.

It's slow at first, almost easy, certainly gentle. There's no rush on Merlin's part, no pressure. He frowns through it, as though he wants to make it perfect, as if he wants to understand the configuration of them. Then Merlin ramps it up, the blunt head of his cock sliding past Arthur's rim, stalling close inside before slipping out again.

“Arthur, I--” Merlin says, moving on top of him, jerking forward into him. With each motion Arthur releases a breath. He fancies it's the sound of his heart breaking, of his soul snapping at the seams and reconfiguring itself. Of course it's nothing of the sort. It's pleasure, but it comes as such an on- rush, such a fever Arthur can't help gasping and groaning, hissing, arching, bucking.

As Merlin thrusts into him with quick snaps of his hips, Arthur bears down every stroke, their bodies fitting together in such a good way Arthur feels himself go almost hard again, experiencing a surge of pleasure that was banked low since he orgasmed.  
“Arthur, I don't think,” Merlin says, “I don't think.”

Whatever it is Merlin means he doesn't make it clear. His voice is too raw for that, too raspy, choked with passion. Merlin tries for a kiss, but he bestows it off centre, and when he comes, he does so in stutters, trembling all the way into the aftermath. When he's done, Arthur feels him slip from him, and he's almost sorry, would be if he weren't content, if he didn't know that the morrow would bring more of this, more of Merlin.

Without turning any lights on, they fall asleep in the same bed, wrapped around the same sheets, tangled in each other.

**** 

Drea bustles out of the room, a tray balanced on her palms. Once she's left the room, Merlin puts down his duster, and turns to Arthur. “Are you sure you don't want me to get you more coffee?”

“We've already talked about it,” Arthur puts down his cup and picks up his documents. “You shouldn't.”

“I'm still your butler.” Merlin's wearing the livery and bearing the tools of the job. “The least I could do is refill that mug of yours.”

“You're more.” Arthur eyes the door, looking at it with some apprehension. “We both know that. I can't bear it.”

Though he probably shouldn't, not considering the fact Drea's likely to come back soon, Merlin seats himself across from Arthur. “We both know we can't exactly advertise that. I have no trouble doing my job as long as...” As long as their nights keep being the same as they have been these past few weeks. With Arthur he's gained a friend as well as a lover. And that's something he will always treasure, that will always warm him, that will always be with him. That's worth more than any chore he might have to fulfil as a servant. “As long as we're on good terms.”

“It's beneath me and beneath you.”

“What is?” Merlin hopes Arthur doesn't think the relationship is. It may be as of yet undefined, a born on the spur of the moment liaison, a partnership started by Merlin's growing affection for Arthur. Learning that Arthur thinks it isn't worthy of him would cleave Merlin in two, put a hole to his heart. “Do you think we...”

“Not acknowledging you as you should be.” Arthur lifts a cup, shifts a plate. “This, you shouldn't be doing this.”

“I don't mind.” Arthur lives alone and shifting a few plates about is no punishing chore for Merlin. “It's easy enough and it's a good pretext, isn't it?”

“I should have listened to Morgana.” Arthur shakes his head and sighs. “As strange as that sounds, that is what I should have done.”

“What?” Merlin favours Arthur having a good relationship with his sister. Whatever complications there might be between them, family should always come first. He fails to see, though, what Arthur's sibling's got to do with this. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“She said you should have a chance at a better job,” Arthur says, shaking his head as he blames himself. “She suggested you should get a shot at either that or getting a new degree, one that is valid in the State of New York.”

Merlin has never thought that far. His life so far has been a whirlwind, one that he's scarcely dictated himself. He's happy with his lot. He's been extraordinarily lucky. In coming over here he was looking for nothing more than a job, an occupation that would allow him to live honourably, enjoying the fruits of his own toil, which would ensure he could help his mother keep the farm. What he's been given is definitely more than that. He's found a friend in Arthur, a companion, a man to love with a bright passion. It's all so new he's only basked in that, with little thought for anything else. That was probably a little thoughtless of him, but it's not often that he's had so few burdens. He has just enjoyed the peace of it, the joy. “I'm not ambitious.”

“But surely you want something.”

As a matter of fact, Merlin does. “I--” He allows himself to hope in a way he hasn't ever since he talked with Father O'Shea at the school back in Galway. “I'd like to teach one day.”

“Then I'd like to help--”

Drea shuffles back in with a new tray. It's laden with coffee and cakes, sandwiches and pancakes. Forks and spoons rattle around on top of it. “Here we are,” she says, thumping the tray onto the table. “Second helping.”

“I didn't ask for a second helping,” Arthur says, mouth staggering open. “I'm fine as I am, Drea.”

“Well, I evidently thought you weren't,” Drea says. Then sending Merlin a rather loaded glance, she adds, “Unlike some idlers, I work hard.”

Cheeks heating, Merlin stands. He straightens the ends of his jacket, his cuffs. “You're right reprimanding me. I was just, um, a little tired.”

“Drea was no such thing,” Arthur says, rising himself. His face is as red as Merlin's feels right now. “Sitting down at my bequest is no sign of idleness.”

“It might as well be,” Drea says. “And very forward too.”

“Drea, I won't countenance such talk.” Arthur broadens his shoulders. “Is that understood?”

Drea doesn't look too cowed, but she curtsies, and lowers her head, saying, “Yes, sir.” Merlin she bestows a cutting glance on. When she leaves, she slams the door.

“This,” Arthur says, pointing to the spot she left. “This is why it's wrong.”

Merlin doesn't want to insist. He doesn't wish to say that Arthur's indignation is unfounded. He understands it, sees the reasons behind it, wishes they weren't there. But they are and for now Arthur and Merlin must use circumspection if they want to continue in their relationship. Merlin for his part wants to. It's with that goal in mind that he opts to go home that night. Truth be told, he longs to stay with Arthur, to climb the stairs to Arthur's room, and enter it. To let Arthur undress him and kiss his body, to have him lay him down, take him. He wishes they could watch the sun rise together. But prudence must come first.

Gwaine's at home when Merlin gets back. He's dusting a shelf with a duster that's dirtier than the surface he's cleaning. “Merlin, long time no see.”

Merlin thinks over the past week. He's barely been here, that's true. But Gwaine is painting the wrong picture here. “I dropped by three days ago.”

“That doesn't count,” Gwaine says, sneezing at the dust he's raked up. “I wasn't here.”

“So the rule is you've got to be here for my presence to matter?” Merlin's lips quirk.

“Of course.” Gwaine puts down the duster. “Otherwise how can I enjoy it?”

They sit down to a hurried dinner. It's nothing like the one he served Arthur. Here they have no choice meats and no fresh vegetables. Gwaine's stirred some over-ripe ones in a pot together with bread and potatoes to get a stew going. Gwaine's commenting about the Irishness of it all when Merlin notices the pile of letters sitting on the counter. “Have those been here long?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Gwaine says, dabbing his lips with a napkin and turning around to pass Merlin the letters he received. “A couple of days. I should have dropped by at Pendragon's, but I didn't think it was urgent.”

“I understand.” The mansion is out of the way for Gwaine. Merlin doesn't hold it against him in the least. “It probably isn't anyway.”

As Gwaine finishes his stew, Merlin reads. The first letter is dated from three weeks ago. Merlin doesn't even need to look at the signature to know who it's from. Will's handwriting is unmistakeable. It's big and bold and his Ts crouch under the other letters. He starts with ordinary chitchat about being sure Merlin's doing great in America and making loads of money with his new job. But then his tone alters and there's something about it that makes Merlin hurry over the next few lines.

_This morning I passed by your farm. Hunith was so very kind. She made me tea and gave me crumpets, the big ones that she makes. Seeing as she wanted to talk about you, I stayed a bit longer than planned. Over the hours it became plain that she wasn't quite so well. She coughed a little and had to wear her shawl all the time. Now I don't want you to worry. Daegal and I got her medicine and are taking turns to go up at the farm to make sure she's all right. While she hasn't made a full recovery as yet, she assures us that our visits are helping. So, overall, things are fine. I do not want you to worry at all. I just thought I'd warn you._

“You've gone pale,” Gwaine says, when Merlin finishes reading his letter. “Is everything all right?”

“My friend from home says my ma is not well.” Merlin rips open the other letter that was sent to him. This one too is addressed in the way of private letters, with no logos on the envelope. The stamps lining its upper corner are Irish, with a green background and a torch-carrying lady in the foreground. “This one's from my friend Daegal,” Merlin says, reading the first line. “He says he's fine.” The first few lines are all friendly talk about Galway, and how it has changed since Merlin was last there. They're so good humoured Merlin's sure Daegal is hiding something. “He goes on about a feast he went to. And then he mentions my mother's poorly.”

_She's coping rather well and I want you to know that Will and I take turns visiting her. But lately she's had a turn for the worse – nothing alarming. We had the doctor in. He said she's not in danger, but to be prudent. She oughtn't work as much as she does and take as many rests as she needs. Will and I are making sure she doesn't get over tired. When we're done with ours, we till her land and see to the farm. Between us and the hired hand, she's not doing much. I promise you we won't let her overwork herself. We'll barely let her do anything. She'll be right as rain in a few weeks. I just thought you should know._

_Well, that's all for now..._

“I think they're making it sound as though it's all fine,” Merlin says, “but I don't believe it.”

Gwaine pushes his food away. “Would they lie?”

“No.” Merlin shakes his head. “But they would try not to worry me.”

“So how do you propose to find out about the true state of things?”

“I have an idea.” Merlin puts the letter back in its envelope. “But I have to talk to Arthur first.”

 

***** 

Arthur is finishing a complicated letter to his bankers, when there's a knock on his study door. Placing his pen in its holder, Arthur looks up. Merlin shuffles inside. Today, he's not wearing his full uniform, his gloves and vest are missing. “Were you in a hurry this morning?” Arthur asks, on the lookout to tease Merlin.

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Merlin wrings his hands. “I took the earliest train. Because I needed to talk. I needed to say this to you.”

What if Merlin has rethought their relationship, has come to think better of their interactions? For an entire week they were in each other's pockets, scarcely ever separating, the distance between them minimal. It's but natural that, having spent some time alone with his friends and at his own place, Merlin should have changed his mind. Even while grasping the reasonableness of this, Arthur feels the room swivel round him, the ground open up and swallow him whole. A choking throat forbids him from saying anything, the words slipping away from him like petals in a gale. He knows what he wants to say. Of course, Merlin's free to step away. But he can't bring himself to utter a chirp. At last he manages to say, “Do tell.”

Merlin scrubs a hand through his hair, shifts his weight from foot to foot, licks his lips. “I received a letter. I only read it last night, but I actually got it a few days ago.” Shaking his head, Merlin murmurs something wholly unintelligible. “In it my friend warned me my mother isn't well.” He takes a huge breath. From the sounds of it it's as though he hasn't breathed in a long, long while. “Though my friends are playing it down, I'm sure it's something serious.”

Arthur doesn't know whether to be relieved Merlin didn't open with the subject of their upcoming parting or to be saddened by the state of his mother's health. “I'm so sorry to hear that. If there's any way I can help.” Arthur's ready to send the woman money or to consult all the physicians of his acquaintance. “I'm ready to contribute.”

“Thank you.” The look in Merlin's eyes is full of pain and emotion. It's like it's all coming to the surface now. “But I can't accept any of that.”

Oh, that's so absurd. Merlin must know that Arthur does hold him dear. He can't think Arthur had him in his bed while feeling nothing. And if he did, he must then think Arthur completely dishonourable. Merlin isn't as uncharitable as that. He's a generous soul, ready to think well of others. Given that, Merlin must know that Arthur views helping Merlin like a natural action. It's the least Arthur can do. “Merlin--”

“No, that's fine, Arthur.” Merlin puts a palm up. “My mother wouldn't want it.”

“Have you even asked her?”

“I needn't. I know her well.” Merlin rakes his shoulders up and inwards. “That's not what I've come here to say though.”

Arthur indicates that Merlin should speak.

“I know I have a contract with you,” Merlin starts. “And that you need a butler. But I need to go to Ireland. Look after her.”

So then, Arthur was right in the first place. This is a parting of ways. Though sadness already touches Arthur's heart, he can't say that he doesn't understand. If he still had his mother and she were ill, he would run to her no questions asked. “You don't have to ask. You can, of course, go.”

“Thank you, Arthur.” Merlin puts his hand on his chest as if he's damming the pain originating behind his ribcage. “I-- you don't know what your understanding means to me.”

Arthur wants to tell Merlin that he has all his support, that he will get all his help. But the hurt from the impending loss stops him from speaking his mind. Baring all is too hard now. It almost feels futile. “I hope your mother mends quickly.”

Merlin nods. Tears in his eyes, he advances. “When she does, I'll come back.”

The flare of hope that lights in Arthur burns so brightly, so purely, it's almost a terrible wildfire. Arthur has no intention of putting it down, of going back to mourning Merlin's impending absence. In an attempt to ride that wave, he says, “I'll go there with you.”

“What?” Merlin blinks, then a grin kills the gloom of his expression, replacing it with joy. He steps closer to Arthur's desk. “Really?”

Arthur stands. “Yes.”

Merlin dashes forward and is about to take Arthur's hand when the door opens. Merlin stands back abruptly and Arthur looks past him to see who it is who's infringing upon their privacy, railroading their moment.

It's Jack Catigern, a man Arthur hasn't seen in quite a while. He's dishevelled, with hair that doesn't seem to have seen a comb in days, and clothes thrown on in rather askew fashion. His tie sits awry and his shirt collars point upwards instead of downwards. He's wearing no coat. It's as though he got out of his house in a hurry and forgot to ever go back for his outerwear and cane.  
“You must put a stop to this,” he says. “You must act quickly, sir.”

Arthur cocks his head and frowns. “I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about.”

Just as Catigern makes to explain, Drea rushes in, panting. “I couldn't stop him, sir.” She rests a hand on her heaving bosom. “He rang the bell and knocked past me without so much as a by your leave.” She points her gimlet eyes at him. “Or a good day.”

“That's all right, Drea,” Arthur says, holding up a palm. “You did everything by the book.” He shifts his gaze onto Catigern, who seems not in the least chastised by Drea's remonstrations, and arches an eyebrow. “I'm sure Mr Catigern had a good reason for barging in.”

“Yes, absolutely.” Catigern makes as if to speak more, but he eyes Drea and Merlin with reluctance. “Yes, of course. I'm going to explain myself.”

“Drea, be so kind as to leave us.” Arthur gives no explicit order to Merlin to do the same because he wants him to stay. He means to make that clear to Catigern. When Drea leaves, he adds, “So Catigern, tell us what had you steaming in here like a locomotive.”

Catigern still hesitates for a second or two, but then he says, “I had very good reason, my old man, very good reason.”

That still isn't much of an elaboration. “For god's sake, man, do make yourself clear.”

Catigern fills his lungs with air, so that his belly hollows. “Well, I tried. I tried using caution.” He encompasses Merlin with his gaze, then when Arthur doesn't ask Merlin to step outside, he moves it to Arthur himself. “It's a scandal.”

“What exactly is a scandal?” Arthur asks. Catigern really has little ability to convey a straight story. “I need context, man, context.”

“Right. Right. That's natural.” Catigern pats himself and extracts a letter from his pocket. It's really remarkable that he should have remembered to bring the missive while forgetting his overcoat. “This morning I received this.” He shows Arthur the envelope before taking out the sheet of ruled note paper the message is written on. “It's from my cousin, Leon.”

“We both know Leon's your cousin.” Arthur wants to shake the man and tell him to hurry and deliver the news.

“Of course. Of course.” Catigern moistens his lips. “After a short preamble, it became clear the letter was a sort of goodbye.”

“What do you mean?” Putting the worst construction to the words Arthur goes cold at the temples.

“He writes a few very nice sentences about appreciating family and sending us his love,” Catigern says, eyes scouring the letter. “But then he adds he can't be dictated to by relatives.”

This still doesn't ease Arthur's fear. “Regarding what?”

“Didn't I say?” Catigern looks up from his reading. “He eloped with your sister.”

“Morgana?” Not that Arthur has any other sister. “Morgana, can't have!” Though of course if there's anyone ready to turn their lives upside down and create a scandal about it, that's her. “She never said...”

“Whatever she may have told you, she has.” As though it's done its job, Catigern folds the letter. “You must stop her.”

If she's already left, which the letter purports, then there's little Arthur can do. “Catigern, you must see how that's an impossibility.”

“I don't care how hard it is.” Catigern pushes his chin outwards. “You must find them and bring them back.”

Arthur doesn't see why he should. First and foremost, if Morgana's made that choice it's because she deeply wants it. Arthur understands needing someone so much you're willing to act rashly for them. Secondly, Morgana's already a widow, the scandal would not be as great if as if she were a debutante. This can all be sorted out calmly. “That's an excessive reaction.”

“Look,” Catigern says. “I'd think so too were the players in this different. But let's be utterly and completely honest here. Your father doesn't want this match; has never wanted it. When he finds out about it, he'll do what he's always threatened to do. Tear down my family.” His face colours with distaste, fear. “I can't allow that to happen. I simply can't and that means you have to stop them.”

It's true that Father will not make this easy. “Have you received any specific threats?”

“Oh, plenty, trust me.” Catigern sighs. “He's even involved our banker. Means to ruin us.” He arches an eyebrow. “And I don't believe for a moment he would baulk from ruining his own daughter.”

Perhaps Catigern knows Arthur's father better than he does himself. In the eyes of society Morgana's union with Leon would be considered a faux pas but not a crime. In Uther Pendragon's eyes it would be a betrayal meant to be strictly punished. Morgana doesn't deserve that. Not in the least. If Arthur wants to save her, he has to find her and make her see reason. But this means that he can't follow Merlin to Ireland, that he can't be with him.

Whatever choice he makes here and now, he loses. A load deposits itself at the pit of his stomach. A feeling like a scalpel turning into his heart and severing its cords makes him dizzy. Even as he addresses Catigern, Arthur looks at Merlin. He does this because his words put an end to their relationship. 

“I'll prepare my bags immediately,” he says. “We go looking for Morgana and Leon.”

 

**** 

 

The journey back to Ireland is colder, more uneventful and lonelier than his journey to New York was. For one the season's colder so the decks are covered in ice almost all the time. Nobody idles outside or sits there at all, not unless they're members of the crew. The little social life they get is over lunch and dinner for they still happen in the common areas. But while Merlin had Gwaine coming over, he makes no such friend now, so his meals are rather solitary. Usually he takes them by himself at one of the long tables, his eyes focused on the other passengers, their quirks and talk. 

As he doesn't fall ill this time around, the passage over is at least somewhat easier on the health front. It's as troubled though because he sleeps badly, having nightmares about his mother, and cryptic dreams about New York.

In the nightmares, his mother is always dead. She lies on a slab in a cold church, her face ashen, her eyes open and sunken, completely lifeless. He knows it's a dream because they would never hold a funeral like that. There'd be a coffin and a wake and relatives Merlin only ever saw when he was a child would pop up. Even so the dreams are so brutally realistic they never fail to wake him with a fanfare of pounding heart and thundering temples.

The farm proves to be completely unaltered. The rooms and furniture are exactly as Merlin left them, not a chair has been moved, not a knick-knack has been cleared. Thanks to Will and Daegal's effort and the hired farmhand's work, the fields, orchard and fences are in as fine repair as Merlin remembers them.

The wash of familiarity as he stalks grounds he's trodden almost all of his life is powerful. Powerful enough to nearly make all his recent New York memories fade. The flat he shares with Gwaine becomes nothing more than a temporary abode, its nooks and crannies not as invested with recollections as every corner of the farm is. 

Arthur's house turns into some sort of golden temple, dear, but not real. He almost fancies he sees it in a bird's eye view, Arthur's study, with its wide desk, bearing its stacks of papers, the documents that will one day get Arthur his father's company taking pride of place. Arthur's library with Arthur sitting in his big chair, a book open on his knees. He even fancies he sees Arthur smile at him. But that can't be possible, can it? Arthur has left New York to chase after Morgana.

When Merlin enters his mother's room, his heart beats fast. Around the bed sit Will and Daegal, obscuring the person lying in it under a mound of thick covers Merlin doesn't recognise. In the hearth, a fire burns, making the room stuffy, overly hot.

Unwrapping his scarf, Merlin walks further into the room. Will and Daegal rise from their seats. Will embraces him first, patting his back and humming within his ribcage. Daegal moves in second. His hug is a little less forceful but no less heart-warming. “Welcome home, Merlin,” they both say. “Welcome home.”

When she sees him, his mother smiles, takes his hand. “You should not have come.” She presses his hand against her own face. “I'm well, Merlin, you shouldn't have made the journey.”

She's wan and pale though, much thinner than she used to be and when she coughs, it rattles her chest, shakes her frame.

Seeing his strong mother look so frail, makes something inside him ache with a constant pain, which has the taste of mourning. Merlin's heart goes leaden and his eyes cloud, but he makes himself smile and kiss his mother on the forehead. “Of course, I came, ma. What were you thinking?”

 

***** 

 

Bar Harbour, Maine, Galavant Estate

 

Arthur paces the anteroom twice. Because the chamber is cluttered with cumbersome Victorian furniture, there's not much room to do this. Skirting past a couple of deep, floral armchairs Arthur goes from the large sideboard, laden with a gilded carriage clock, to the bust of some forebear of other. Because of a game of shadows, it looks as if it frowns at Arthur, the light and darkness tightening its lineaments in a moue of disapproval. Thrown by the uncanniness, Arthur shakes his head at it. He's about to reprise his perambulations, when the door opens and Aunt Ganieda's seretary says, “She's very busy, but she'll see you now.”

Despite her claims of business, Aunt Ganieda doesn't seem to be taken up with any task when she welcomes him in. She sits at a small tea table, tarot cards arranged in an arc around its rim. A teapot and cup sit next to her elbow, the cup nearly empty, leaves and dregs staining the bottom. 

“Ah, nephew,” she says, indicating her secretary should leave the room with a wave of her hand. When the secretary leaves, unobtrusively snicking the door closed, she adds, “What brings you here?”

Arthur could do as he always does when he sees his aunt, start with small talk that'll entertain the old lady and bring a smile on her face. But today he can do none of that, for there's no time for it. “Have you news of Morgana?”

Aunt Ganieda puts on her monocle. “My niece?” She tips up her eyebrows; she's over-picked them but the look's still severe. “Why should I?”

“You're her favourite relative.” Arthur fights the urge to do some more pacing and stays put instead. “She writes to you. Why wouldn't you know?”

Aunt Ganieda waves her hand at the cabinet behind her. “You'll find no letter from your sister among my personal belongings. You can check my correspondence, if you don't believe me...”

Arthur's tempted, but he knows he can't do that. It would be too big a breach of etiquette. Not to mention the rift it would create between himself and his aunt. With Morgana acting behind his back and his father furious with him, Arthur is already on bad terms with most of his family. He doesn't want to add to that. “You're sure I have no idea where she is?”

“If she's not home,” Aunt Ganieda says, “I'm sure you'll find her somewhere full of people. She's not one for solitude, our Morgana.”

Arthur nods. Even while knowing Morgana had taken off in secret, he'd never thought she'd be hiding in some forest or prairie. “Did she mention any place in in her last communications with you?”

“I don't think she did. We discussed books.” Aunt Ganieda narrows her eyes at him. “Why do you want to know?”

Arthur sighs. “Morgana eloped.”

“And you want to find her and bring her back?” Aunt Ganieda wags her head. “Tell me, with all that Morgana's gone through, her losing Mordred so young, her mourning so deeply she had nightmares for years, do you really think she should be stopped from pursuing happiness?”

It seems Arthur's aunt's dead set on judging him and finding him lacking in empathy. “No, Aunt,” he says. “I want to protect her from our father.”

“Sometimes protection is another prison.” That's as good a dismissal as any, Arthur can see.

The restaurant in Bar Harbour overlooks the sea and a nice walk, which, because of the rain, is mostly empty of passers-by. Arthur takes off his overcoat and hat and sets them out to dry on a chair. His cane he leans against the nearest chair. He's three spoons deep into his soup, when a servant dawdles close to him. “If you wouldn't mind, sir.” The man sidles from side to side. “There's a message for you.”

Arthur lowers his spoon. “A message?”

The servant hands him a note. It's stashed in an envelope but its flaps aren't sealed. “This one, Mr Pendragon.”

Arthur thanks the servant and reads the message.

It says:

_If you want to find your sister, turn to her friends. They're the ones she sought protection with. Never forget to be kind._

After he's pocketed the note, Arthur says, “I won't.”

 

****

 

The doctor auscultates his mother's chest and heart and palpates her abdomen. When he's done, he puts his instruments back in his bag. “I don't find you any the worse, Mrs Emrys,” he tells Merlin's mother. “But I would like you to take you to hospital to run some further tests.”

His mother wraps her shawl around her shoulders. “Is that really necessary?” She tips her head back so she can look at the doctor while he stands. “I feel like some more home rest will put me to rights.” She smiles at Merlin. “Besides, I've my son here now and he's been so helpful. He's lightened my burden so much. I need no hospital.”

“While I do believe that home rest can help, Mrs Emrys,” the doctor says, “the tests I intend to run are very important and can only be performed in a clinical environment.”

“I see.” His mother looks down, tightening her grip on the hem of her blanket. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.” The doctor closes his bag and lifts it. “But I urge you to do it quickly.”

Merlin escorts the doctor to the door. It's a raining hard and the doctor has no umbrella. Even though Merlin can't spare him a walk through muddy fields, he can at least walk him to the turnstile while holding his old brolly over his head. At first the doctor refuses, but, given his slumped shoulders and less than buoyant attitude towards the downpour, Merlin knows it's merely out of politeness. So he pulls on a jacket – it's one that used to belong to his father, full of holes and frayed in places – and picks up his old sturdy umbrella. He knows how to pick his way, how not to end up mired in muck while crossing a field. Being a farmhand is not something you unlearn, not even after months of stay in New York, where mud doesn't quite run as plentiful. 

“The road's not far off,” Merlin says, as he directs their steps towards the farm's boundaries.

“You have a good farm out here,” the doctor says. “Your mother says it's all up to you.”

Merlin huffs. “She would say that. The truth is I've spent the past six months in America.”

“I think she means you laid the groundwork.” The doctor looks around. “I can't say I disagree with her.”

“My mother can be very convincing.” She's like that, has always been, Merlin reckons. A steady flame that always burns bright, full of hope and love for others, full to trust and a readiness to uphold her dear ones. “Don't listen to her.”

The doctor stops. “You look like a fine lad. It's a pity Ireland's lost you to America.”

With a stab of longing Merlin looks into the distance. “That's not necessarily true.” His lungs seek air and he drinks in some. The mouthful he breathes in tastes like earth and grass, like salt from the sea. It tastes like home in ways his body recognises. He wonders if he would react the same way if he was in New York, if he were to step into Arthur's room for example, or into his flat. “If my mother's grievously ill...”

“She's not well,” the doctor says, eyes softening with kindness. “At the moment I can't be more specific. I can't tell whether her lungs are weak because they're inflamed or whether…”

“Whether?” Merlin feels cold about the head, about the heart.

“Whether it's TBC.” The doctor's gaze oozes gentleness. “It may not be. But I want to test it.”

The line of Merlin's shoulders hardens. “So I really should advise her to go to hospital.”

“My medical opinion is that you should.” They reprise walking and the doctor gesticulates with his bag in his hands. “Of course I'll come round again myself. After all--” He gazes round. “This place is worth coming back to.”

When he gets back into the house, Merlin goes straight into the kitchen. He stirs the fire on the hearth and puts a kettle on the boil. With some herbs stashed into the cupboard, he makes his ma a tisane. Stirring sugar and honey in it, he fills a mug. He bears the tray into her bedroom. Smiling, he says, “Fancy some myrtle tisane?”

“Merlin, you shouldn't have.”

Setting the tray on the bedside table, Merlin sits on the edge of his mother's bed and passes her the warm mug. “Of course I should.” He smiles. “When I wasn't well you used to bring me...”

“Honeyed milk, I remember.”

Though his smile could have more power, it isn't lacking in warmth. “I loved it. I just thought I'd do the same.”

“I just don't want you to fret, my boy.” His ma takes a sip. “You're fretting, I can see it.”

Merlin exhales a big breath and runs his hands through his hair. “Can you blame me for worrying?”

“I don't, dear,” his ma says. “I just wish you wouldn't.”

Merlin shouldn't put his needs before his mother's, but he's afraid he's going to regret it if he doesn't. “I'd just rest easier if you went to hospital.”

“Merlin--”

“Please, ma...” Merlin is ready to beg and plead. “I don't want to leave any stone unturned.”

His mother locks her hands together atop the covers. “If it really eases you, then I will go.”

Leaning closer, Merlin kisses his mother on the cheek. As he does so he notices just how much bulkier he is compared to her, how much more fragile she is. When he was a child, he considered his mother a tower of strength. Now he realises that, in spite of inner resources, his ma needs to lean on him. “Thank you, ma.”

As he draws back, she cups his cheek and reads his eyes. “There's something else that worries you, my boy. Something that's got nothing to do with me.”

Merlin darts his glance away. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

“I can tell. You're my son, after all.”

Merlin bows his head, breathes in deeply. “I just wonder...” He blinks rapidly, his fingers twisting the blanket on his mother's bed. “...if the friendships I made when I was over there will wilt and die, if my life there's entirely evanescent.”

“Merlin, it's going to be how you want it to be,” his ma says. “If you want to keep in touch--”

“Ah but will they?” Merlin's not yet written Arthur. He's started at least four letters so far. They're all few lines long, all empty words, stupid greetings. However much he tries, he can't finish. He can't find the words because he thinks whichever ones he decides for, Arthur's not going to read them anyway. He must be so busy, wherever he is now on his quest for Morgana, he must scarcely have any time to remember Merlin. “Or was it only the closeness of the moment?”

“Time will tell, Merlin.” His mother holds his hand. “Time will tell.”

 

**** 

 

Minetta Lane is a nice one-way street that begins at the Northeast corner of Bleecker Street and the Avenue of the Americas. Number five lies on the eastern side of the road, a six-storey building encased by two taller ones. A narrow lobby leads into a small courtyard with a fountain in the middle. It's utilitarian, small, and round, but with the moss overgrowths that stain the base and the flowers that grow around it, it looks welcoming, friendly. At the back of the lot sits a four-story brick building.

Arthur enters it and climbs the stairs two at a time. He reaches the fourth floor and knocks on a door that faces the stairwell.

Miss Smith is wearing a brown dress today, one that has little flowers on it in a subtle pink shade. She has ruffles at her neck and frills at her cuffs. Even so she doesn't look as if she's poised to go out. Over her dress, in fact, she has a cosy apron and her hair's held up by colourful pins no one would use to… “Mr Pendragon.” She places a hand on her heart as though the sight of him has scared her. “To-- to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“I think you may know.” Though Arthur's worried sick, he makes an effort not to sound angry. Miss Smith is in no way responsible for any of this.

Miss Smith looks down. “Come inside.” She widens the door so he can step in. “Follow me.”

Compared to his Miss Smith's house is on the small side, but even so the corridor opens on quite a few doors. They step into a living room. The walls are papered in a pattern created by a tangle of blue flowers intersecting purple coloured centres and full green leaves. Singing awards and other professional mementoes sit on a wooden porch-rack. A bowl-of waxed fruit sits centre stage on the cloth draped table. It's all very cozy; Arthur too would choose to exile himself here too. “So where is she?”

“You know, I often sing about love,” Miss Smith says. “But I do actually believe in it.”

“I'm sure you did what you did for the loftiest of reasons.” Before he was tipped, Arthur wouldn't have supposed Morgana to be such close friends with her musical protegée, but he acknowledges he was wrong. Clearly Miss Smith is doing this out of loyalty. “But this is quite complicated. Just the other day my father called on me. He threatened to cut Morgana off, to disgrace her.”

“And even if he did,” Miss Smith says. “Do you think Morgana would mind?”

Arthur swallows sharply. “Perhaps not. But I have a better plan.”

Miss Smith sighs. She looks at him as though he doesn't know what love is at all. “Come on,” she says, “follow me.”

She leads him back to the corridor and from thence into another room, this one much less ornate than the other, and clearly merely functional to the household. She passes through this and steps onto a balcony facing a back alley. On the balcony a table stands and around it Leon and Morgana sit. They must have been playing cards for a deck towers on one side of Leon and cards have been dealt. There are enough for three players.

“Arthur!” Morgana sits up, storm in her eyes. “What are you doing here!”

“A little bird told me where I could find you.” Arthur has a fair idea who it was, but he'd rather not out them to Morgana. That would compromise their relationship forever. “But that's of no consequence with me.”

“I see,” Morgana says. “So you've come to thwart me?”

“No, I've come to ask you to be patient.” It's not unreasonable, Arthur deems. “Wait it out.”

“Absolutely not!” Morgana puts her hand on top of Leon's. An engagement ring wreathes her finger. It's platinum with a small round diamond at the centre. “Tomorrow I'm marrying Leon.”

“Morgana, there's a better solution.”

She snorts loudly. “And what would that be?” She challenges him with a lift of her eyebrow. “Living forever alone in a gilded cage? Sharing my bed with a man I detest only because it's my father's choice?”

“No, Morgana.” Sometimes Arthur really wants to give up on his sister. How could she believe him so willing to sacrifice her? “We can compromise.”

“Only someone who's never loved would suggest a compromise!” Morgana stands and the table totters. “How could you!”

“Morgana!” Leon looks with alarm at her.

Arthur feels all the stab of that remark, bears all the brunt of it, and for a moment he cannot breathe. He wonders where Merlin is. Probably at home by now. Though Arthur can't be certain, not with no correspondence to rely on, he can at least widely surmise. He wishes he could know, so as to be able to send good thoughts, but then again maybe Merlin doesn't wish him to. Maybe the separation's taught him that his life works better for him without Arthur. 

“I can because I want you to flourish, but you don't seem to want to listen!”  
Miss Smith clears her throat.

She's right, Arthur is tackling the matter in the worst way possible. If Morgana's to understand, he should make his plans clearer. Though she could be kinder, he isn't being direct enough. “I'm not asking you not to marry Leon, who by the way is my good friend, indefinitely. I'm asking you to wait a few weeks.”

“And then what?” Morgana says. “I suppose you'll ask me to wait for a few more, and then a few more again.”

“Even if that were the case.” Leon co-opts her gaze. “I'd never grow tired of waiting.”

Before those two can overdramatise further, Arthur says, “It would just be two or three weeks.”

Morgana tilts her head at him. “You really mean it?”

“Of course, I do.” He flares his eyes at her. “I have a plan.”

Morgana sits back down. “Tell me about it.”

After Arthur lowered himself into the chair opposite Morgana, Miss Smith takes the one closest to Leon. When Arthur speaks, they all pay attention to him. “In three weeks’ time at the latest, I'm going to cash in on an investment I made.” Leon gazes quizzically at him. “I'm going to use the money to bid on shares from my father's company.” Now it's Morgana's turn to look at him attentively. Arthur allows himself to smile. “I'm going to take over half the company. It's not what I'd been planning to do.” Arthur had meant to purchase the whole of it a few years down the line. But now he hasn't got the money for that. This is factually nearly going to break him financially. Still, he's going to buy Morgana's happiness and some safety for his father's workers. He won't be able to push all the changes he wants to implement in one sitting, but some he will. Considering that he hadn't meant to do that before the two-year mark, it's something he can live with. “But you see how this can be to your advantage.”

“You want to blackmail father into accepting Leon?” Morgana smiles.

Arthur wouldn't have put it so crudely, but he can't deny that that's more or less what he has in mind. “You'll be able to marry Leon, avoid all scandal. Don't you think this is a much better option than all the uproar you had planned?”

Morgana doesn't admit it, but she starts planning a very public wedding to which she intends to invite all of town.

At the door Leon tells him, “You know I owe you, right?”

“You're my friend.” Arthur shrugs. “And she's, God forbid it, my sister.”

“Still.” Leon places a hand on his elbow. “Thank you, Arthur.”

Arthur gives the slightest of nods.

As he goes, he hears Leon say, “I hope you find as much love as I have, dear friend.”

 

****

 

His mother flinches under the stethoscope and breathes when told, inhaling deeply. She suffers a coughing fit, but it doesn't last as long he her other ones did. This one is hefty but brief.

“Could you pass me a handkerchief, Merlin?” his mother says.

As Merlin does, the two hospital doctors survey her. His mother's own physician stands in the corner, his gaze missing nothing. The two other doctors, elder men with white hair that grow in wisps on their heads, lean towards each other and consult each other.

Dr Fisher withdraws the stethoscope, and tugs his patient’s blouse into place. ‘I don't think you have tuberculosis,’ he says. “Though naturally we’ll take a spit sample, so we can be certain.” As he looks to his colleague for confirmation, he rubs his full white beard.

The other hospital doctor nods and Merlin's mum’s physician presses her hand.

“Well, if you must,” his mother says whispering into her handkerchief, the hem lifting as she breathes.

“Certain? How?” Merlin asks, not sure if he understands the procedure these doctors are going to perform. While he knows what TBC is, he has no idea as to how it can be detected.

“The tuberculosis bacteria,” his mother's doctor says, “is a microorganism that can carry infectious disease. If your mother were to have TBC, then these bacteria would be traceable in her sputum.’

Merlin's brow furrows.

“We'd be using a microscope.” The doctor swipes his arm around, indicating a large table sitting under a window. On it a large microscope has pride of place. It's brass with a black painted foot, a large dish sitting below a refractometer, and wide lenses that catch the light of day. “It's brand new and by and large infallible.”

One of the older doctors, the one with the beard, casts a glance at his colleagues, then an embarrassed one at his mother. “Mrs Emrys could you please cough again – no need to irritate your lungs – and spit into a dish?”

“My parents taught me it wasn't polite to do this in public,’ says Merlin's mother, with a little flash of wistful humour. “But in this day and age it's all about science. And I suppose you can't contradict a group of doctors.”His mother's physician brings her a steel dish.  
She turns around and dregs up a cough from her chest. Once she has spat, she hands the dish back, saying, “I am really sorry.”  
His mother's physician touches her shoulder and says, “Don't even think about apologising, Mrs Emrys. It's all for a good cause.”  
His mother gives him a gracious tip of her head.

“What are you going to do with it?” Merlin asks. He understands that microscopes enlarge objects to many times their sizes, but he's still not sure he gets the procedure. Can you even see such a small microorganism even if it's made to look bigger? “I mean how can you spot this bacteria?”

“It's a fairly simple procedure,” his mother's physician says. ‘We're going to stain the bacillus so that it’s easily visible under a microscope.” He passes the dish to one of his colleagues. “If it's present, then...” He lowers his eyes. “Mrs Emrys has Phthisis.” When Merlin looks at him with an alarm he can't shake off, the physician is kind enough to say, “Or maybe we were too alarmist and your mother has pneumonia, or a milder disease, both of which can absolutely be treated successfully.”

While both sound bad to Merlin, the possibility of a cure comforts him. For Tuberculosis there's none.

“Let's hope for the best,” his mother says. ‘For Merlin's sake.”

The doctor who has the dish with his mother's sample walks to the table with the microscope. He sits on the low stool, removes his glasses, and sprays the dish with a liquid. “If you wait a few minutes,” I’ll be able to give you a definitive answer.” He puts his eye to the lens. “Though I hope, of course, there’ll be nothing to see.”

Going to his mother's bed, Merlin holds her hand. When he was a child and he was feeling poorly, she would always do this for him. So he clings. He clings because it's all happening so fast and now he will have the answer and there will be no going back from it. Once he knows, it will be set in stone and he either walks away from this place with hope or with none. His old life will never be back.

“Don't worry, Merlin,” his mother says. “It'll all be well.”

Merlin isn't sure how to interpret this, whether his ma's confident of the outcome or if she simply wishes to confide in fate, God. He's not sure he can pray himself, he's too afraid. So he sits down in a chair and looks at the doctors analsying his ma's sample, dreading the answer. A part of him wants to continue in happy ignorance but that wouldn't be the best for her. When he can no longer wait, he asks, “So how is she?”

The doctor who was studying the microscope turns around on his stool and says, “I see no trace of Koch's bacillus in the sample.” He adjusts his spectacles. “Mrs Emrys isn't affected by Tuberculosis.”

Springing to his feet, Merlin covers his face with his hands. “Thank God.”

“See, Merlin,” his ma tells him when he embraces her, “it all turned out for the best.”

 

**** 

A cliff flanks the coastal road, its base grey, its top covered in grasses that shake emerald in the breeze. The road winds, twists and turns, but swathes of blue sea always pop into the view. In sight there are no trees, but it's not all verdant land, because patches of turf poke out in brown islands. Grey outcrops lance their way out of the soil, painting it with streaks of iron.

When the cart driver halts his cart, he says, “This is as far as I go.” He spits over the side of his vehicle. “But the Emrys' farm is that way.” He points in the right direction with his index. “Right down that path.”

Arthur doffs his hat and hands the man a satchel full of shillings. He doesn't know how many are in there or how much the exchange rate with the dollar goes. Either way he doesn't much care. It was money well spent. “Thank you, sir.”

He walks the distance towards the farm. He wants to run it, rush it, but something inside him also tells him to savour the moment, learn the way of the land, Merlin's homeland. So he stops from time to time, turns his body towards the sea, looks outwards and breathes is in. This, this is the view Merlin was fostered on, the one that saw his birth and that shaped it. Arthur can see why Merlin turned out the way he did. He's as earnest as this earth, as much of a breath of fresh air as this very breeze. He's as true as these cliffs. Yes, this is Merlin and this land is Merlin.

Inhaling a deep gutful of air, Arthur marches on until he comes to the fence that surrounds the farm. He must have got at it from the wrong side because when he comes up to it he finds only a fence that skirts an orchard and no entryway. With a leap, Arthur's over it. He walks along the length of the outer furrow. It bulges with vegetables that haven’t yet made it out of the earth, roots wrapping around trellises.

Once he's past it, he makes out the house itself. It's low, but not as small as Arthur had imagined it. It's well kept, with the shutters newly painted and the chimney-pieces stacked fresh. It's simple, very rural, but Arthur loves the place already. With his hand half formed into a fist he knocks on the door.

Merlin opens. Over the two months of their separation, his hair has grown much longer and wilder. As he moves, the wind catches its strands and wipes it over his forehead.  
“Arthur,” he says, his breath catching as he speaks. “What – what are you doing here?”

“Morgana said I should come.” Arthur realises how that's not explanation enough. “You haven't written and I haven't otherwise heard from you, so I was thinking it was over, but Morgana said I should ask you directly, so I came and found you.”

Merlin gulps being a huge mouthful of air. “You never wrote either and I thought you had other things to think about.”

“Morgana's fine.” Arthur can picture her now, sitting at her table, writing out marriage invitations. “She's marrying Leon next week.”

“What, how?”

“I found her and forced Father's hand by buying him out of half his shares,” Arthur says. “The end result is that she's marrying Leon. I'm poorer and I'm here. If you don't want me to stay--” He reddens deeply. “I can understand. I'll read your cutting off of communications as a desire to... to sever our relationship, and I understand, but Morgana said I can't let this go without asking. So here I am.”

A smile blooms on Merlin's lips. “You told all this to Morgana?”

“She'd told me everything about her love for Leon,” Arthur says. “I thought it behove me to return as much information about myself.”

“I see.” Merlin's expression doesn't change. It drips joy.

Still Arthur needs to be sure. “So about us?”

“I didn't write because I was worried you had better things to think about,” Merlin says, pulling him into the house. “Besides, I was so worried about my ma. I scarcely have had time to have the presence of mind to think of two words to say. My attention span was so short and every thought was for her. Otherwise, I would have tried.”

There's pretty little light inside but Arthur can spot the hearth and the range, the herbs hung from the rafters. It's all very cosy, very familial. “By the way how's your mom?”

“She's fully recuperating and making great progress,” Merlin says. “She doesn't have TBC, which was what the doctor feared the most. Just a severe case of bronchitis. She's in full remittance.”

“I'm so glad for her.”

Merlin potters about and makes him some tea. “Here.” He hands him a cup.

“Thanks.” Arthur automatically accepts the tea and drinks it. It's strong and very aromatic. Different from the one they serve in America. Heartier. “So about my question. Are we....” Still where we were? Arthur wonders. “Is there an understanding between us or has that ceased to be?”

“There is,” Merlin says, throwing him a cautious glance. “If you want there to be.”

“In that case--” Arthur puts the cup down on the table, strides across the room and kisses Merlin on the mouth. “I think we're committed.”

 

****

The Library of Columbia University is a solid block of marble, domed, colonnaded, severely neoclassical. Merlin takes the steps down two at a time and steps into the street where he meets Arthur.

Arthur raises his hat at him with his cane and smiles. “So are you done?”

“I gave back the last book I borrowed, I wrote the last page of my thesis--” Because he can't believe it himself, Merlin beams. “And in a couple of months I'll have my degree.”

“Congratulations then.” Arthur places his hand on Merlin's shoulder. Merlin can tell he wants to do more. He'd like the same. For a slow kiss to happen. For them to come together in a bracing embrace. But he knows that can't happen. “It's totally deserved.”

“Thank you.” Merlin shuffles, tugs his ear. “I... I did my best. I really want to become a teacher.”

“You should be one.” Arthur nods. “You've all the cards.”

They start walking home, the windswept avenues of New York framing them.

“Again.” Merlin feels all the weight of Arthur's faith in him. “Thank you.”

“Don't be too modest. As I said, you more than deserve to fulfil your dream.” Arthur looks ahead as he walks, toying with his cane. “Which brings me to this; I've heard of a position.”

“You're not using your influence for me to get it, are you?” Merlin asks. Arthur's not the type. He wouldn't act like Uther. But he does want the best for Merlin and you never know. “I want to make it all by myself.”

“I just heard of it from my sister.” Arthur places his hand on his breast. “I swear.”

Merlin tilts his head to the side. “And Mrs Vanderridden hasn't used her clout, has she?”

“I believe not.” Arthur looks at Merlin. “Anyway they're very strict and if you don't pass the interview you won't be hired.”

“In that case I will trust them to be fair.” Merlin will make that interview. He does want to teach. So, so dearly. He squeezes Arthur's hand. “I'm so glad for this opportunity.”

“You'll be the best...” Arthur smiles. “And the laxest teacher on earth.”

“Because I'll love all my pupils.”

They knock shoulders together. “Shut up, Merlin.”

As the sun sets, they walk together into the pink of the evening.

 

The End.


End file.
